Nighthawk Chronicles: Playing God
by Plague Angel
Summary: The largest conspiracy in the history of the clans threatens to destroy their military foundation. The sequal to The Madness Method pits the Nighthawks on an unknown planet course with mystery and death where only the truth can set them free.
1. Prologue

**Nighthawk Chronicles - Playing God**

Etienne Balzac headed up a scientist conspiracy within Clan Jade Falcon some years ago, and was found and dealt with through the vigilant efforts of Kael Pershaw and his Clan Watch. Efforts were taken to purge the clan of those underground workings, but only extended to rooting those involved out of positions of power. The investigations into the extent of the problem never bared any fruit, until now.

When a Goliath Scorpion cartographer vessel is shot down in uncharted space by organized military craft, Kael Pershaw sends his clandestine covert-ops unit in to investigate. His interest in this incident seemingly unimportant to Clan Jade Falcon uncovers truths that were best left buried. Though some secrets have their way of surfacing no matter how hard you try to push them down...

Following the 32nd Special Operations Unit (the Nighthawks) from their debut in The Madness Method, the secrets of an unknown settled planet close in in the most unexpected ways. What do you do when cut off from your clan in a hostile land full of ghosts from your past, and possibly the most deadly enemy of your future?

* * *

**Prologue**

The Red Aculeus, cartographer ship in service to clan Goliath Scorpion was returning from its latest voyage into sector 148. The trip itself was cut short due to the captain, Kelter, contracting Berusian Hepococcus, a new version of influenza that has yet to have a treatment developed. In the science arena, he is responsible for re-vamping the entire mapping protocol used by the Goliath Scorpions, which is why at this age, he is still commanding mapping missions. Sadly enough, his immune system couldn't take the new virus, and it seriously hampered the voyage. The military liaison, Star Captain Zoel, assumed command and made the call to return to a proper Goliath Scorpion medical facility. The path chosen took them through a patch of unmapped space, which would only prove more productive to its previous mission.

Star Captain Zoel entered the bridge with a sense of purpose and immediately asked for a situation report.

"Sir, we found several unmarked aerospace fighters in what appears to be training maneuvers. Their area does not interfere with our travel path, but we have attempted to raise them on comm and no answer came back yet. They are clan models in a mixed unit." The lead tech finished his report looking at the open view port, which had a pale blue planet in its main view. Several screens had the footage of unmarked aerospace fighters entering a formation and maneuvering in unison.

"Who do we know has territory around here?" Zoel asked to no one specific.

The lead tech came back at him, "No one, sir. This area is unmapped."

"Patch me through to them," Zoel commanded.

"You are through, sir."

"Unidentified aerospace units, this is Star Captain Zoel of Clan Goliath Scorpion from the cartographer vessel Red Aculeus. Identify yourselves at once." Though his tone was stern, Zoel's face reeked of deep thought with a hint of concern.

After several moments of silence, he continued. "Unidentified aerospace units, I say again. Identify yourselves."

Another minute went by. He decided he had no time to waste in investigating. The location was stored in the map system and will be brought to his commander's attention at home station upon his return. There was not much time to waste in concern to Kelter. Normally, a person would die in such a fashion in a deep voyage like this one, as the needs of the clan overrule the needs of the individual. But Kelter was held in high regard before his volunteer for cartographic duty. Though he survived to his old age, he wanted to continue his time in the Scorpion fleet rather than be assigned to archive research, and his superiors formed a good relationship with him. It is the least Zoel could do for a man who demanded such respect, and earned it.

The order was given to continue the course and monitor the fighter activity. Tensions eased slightly as everyone knew that the vessel had minimal defensive capability and aerospace escort for such a mission was not authorized.

But the state of slight relaxation was cut short when one of the techs sounded off, "Fighter units incoming!"

All eyes shot to the large display as the tech routed the image of the units flying toward the Red Aculeus in a combat formation. Star Captain Zoel was visibly angry. With limited weapons at his disposal, he ordered his men to do what he thought had top priority. "All defensive positions get prepped and get hot! We have incoming! Halls!"

One of the bridge techs responded, "Sir!"

"Prep the last thirty minutes of bridge surveillance footage for long range transmission. I want this message shot to command ASAP. Put the location and all pertaining information in!"

"Aye, sir!" was the response.

The intercom lit up, "_Sir, defensive posts are up and running, orders for live defense…"_

Star Commander Zoel pursed his lips as he hated what he knew could very well happen soon. But the fighters have attained target locks on the vessel, as a few blinking lights and panicked activity at the sensor stations conveyed. It was time to go down fighting. "Defend us at all costs. Do not stop firing until they are dead or you are out of ammo."

The first rounds of the small naval autocannons reverberated through the ship's walls, and the view of the fighters showed them evading. But the PPCs on each of them lit off one by one until each bolt hit the Red Aculeus in center mass. The damage reports came in, and one of them hit the engine outtake on the port side. More PPC bolts rocked the bridge as one of the fighters imploded when one of the autocannon rounds perforated its internal structure and pressure seals.

"Men, it pains me to tell you that we may go down like this. But—" the last PPC bolt rocked the bridge so hard that it cut his speech off. Several fires started in the stations as techs ran around frantically to get their areas under control.

Frantic shouts filled the room.

"Fire!"

"Get that hose over there!"

"I lost target tracking!"

"D-pods, report!"

"Engine room pressure seals blown!"

Zoel did not resume his dialogue when he regained his footing. He was too choked up as the fighters came in for another run. Their formation was noticeably different from any he had ever seen before, and it was working to great effect against his limited defense.

Another two hits, and the bridge was compromised. Pressure was lost and the entire bridge crew decompressed and flew out the open cavern into the emptiness of space, their only company was the destroyed equipment that followed them out.

Silence overwhelmed them despite the explosions around them, as it would for eternity.


	2. Chapter 1: Phantoms

**Chapter One: Phantoms**

The screen paused and Kael Pershaw stepped into view. He just showed his unit all the footage taken from the late Scorpion cartographer vessel. The footage precluded his briefing.

"This is the last transmission of the Red Aculeus, a cartographer vessel of Clan Goliath Scorpion." Kael Pershaw paced along the display wall of his briefing room, his prosthetics turning his step into more of a limp than a smooth walk. Nonetheless, his unit watched him intently.

Star Commander Bree spoke up first, asking the obvious. "We keep tabs on Goliath Scorpion cartographer vessels?"

Kael replied without so much as looking at her, an irritating habit he has, "The Goliath Scorpions have their seekers, which I like to keep an eye on. A few key transmissions regarding other operations make their way to my ear, yes."

"Obviously they have not identified the fighters that took them down," Thao Prentice, field commander, tried to get his unit back on topic, "but we do not have any records of _any_ clan in that area. The Scorpions have been mapping systems around it for years, and just now hit that part. This means that whoever it is, they may have been there for a while." He sat at the center of the table, which only showed the new comers how integrated he is in his own unit. Many commanders like to separate themselves by sitting at the end or standing away altogether, to gain extra attention for themselves in front of their commanding officer, but Thao just sat forward in his chair, leaning on the table with his elbows, speaking to everyone in equal balance.

"Clan Goliath Scorpion may retaliate, but we know that they will definitely field a response," Kael added.

"The Scorpions are not known for straight up military campaigns," Bree stated, "even small responses outside their area of interest." Bree headed up the first star in Thao's command, known as simply "Alpha". As his most trusted subordinate and advisor, she was responsible for taking in most of the new recruits in the wake of the Huntress Incident. "Do we have any intel on their response as of yet?"

The skepticism in her voice was minimal, but Kael could tell she had no interest in their response or place in the upcoming assignment. "Neg, but the grapevine is open, and you will receive full details of their involvement when they mobilize."

Thao just dipped his head and pinched the bridge of his nose as he spoke up. "So these were highly trained aerospace fighters, with formations, weapons payloads, and everything. It is nice that they can fight, and Clan Goliath Scorpion may have a little fiasco on its hands, but what does this have to do with us exactly?"

Kael stopped pacing and faced Thao directly, "The communication said they appeared to be in training maneuvers. Unless this is a bandit caste with military hardware, it may be what we talked about before."

Thao perked up instantly, thoughts racing through his head like a flooding river. It looked as if he was going to speak, but stopped himself in lieu of further thought. "In that case, how do we go about this?"

Kael loaded up the planet in question on the big screen behind him. Several points were highlighted in red in the asteroid belt around the planet. The image is a computer representation of the video footage supplied by the late Red Aculeus, showing the planet to be completely covered by dense clouds, which not only hindered anyone from identifying the surface composition, but also suggests the planet to have a heavy water cycle and be densely humid. "Julian has been dispatched already. It looks like the planet's defenses were already capable, but now they are expected to be on high alert in response to the Scorpions' new knowledge of their existence."

He walked to the right of the room so they could see the progression of images and markers annotating his narration. "Julian is in a probe ship carrying his Phantom approaching the planet in question in roughly 16 hours. The probe ship will send out a low frequency surface scan to identify potential insertion points. He will then land near the suspected center of activity and run surface recon on the population and planetary defenses. Your craft will shoot our transfer signal to the surface while hiding in the asteroid belt upon your arrival, which will be caught by his receiver. Since he will not be able to respond, the signal will mark your T minus eight-hour departure point. If he does not find a way to respond within that time frame, you will take your unit via Phantoms and land at a point designated outside of the target's projected defensive grid. You will then link up with Julian with proximity trackers.

"After that you take his leads and perform a complete recon of the area, including political affiliation, military strength, social structure, and threat capacity. Five days in another probe ship will sit in the asteroid belt and await a high-powered direct communication concerning your findings.

"At that point it will be decided to either fight our way in and extract you via dropship, or have you find your own way off planet and have us escort you back. Full support elements will be on standby in a third craft further in the asteroid belt if you need them. They are your last resort." Kael stopped in the center of the wall awaiting feedback and questions.

Mechwarrior Davin spoke up in inquiry, "Why is this planet so important to us again? I mean, I know we may have things to gain by landing there first, but we have other pressing matters. Is there something we should know before landing in the dragon's teeth so to speak?"

Kael Pershaw, unsurprisingly calm in his response, waved Thao down with his hand telling him that he will enlighten the new recruit. "I have substantial reason to believe that more than one clan may reside there, and to protect our interests, I want to know what we have at stake in this. The Falcon is not ignorant, and I make sure all loose ends are tied up, permanently."

The reasoning did not seem to convince Davin, but he kept his mouth shut. Even he knew better than to ask Kael Pershaw the same question a second time.

"Now, if you are done, I want the 32nd geared and ready for departure in six hours. You have full control over what goes into your support craft, but the space in the Phantoms is limited. If you screw up on this one, you die. Simple. Dismissed." With that, Kael left the unit to its own devices.

Star Commander Bree looked over at Davin with a spark of red in her eyes, "One more question like that and I will have you on troop lockdown Mechwarrior Davin. Do you have any idea what that does to the rest of us—"

"Star Commander Bree, I am sure we can find a way to rectify Davin's actions in the upcoming trip. I want you to concentrate on your prep. And Davin, you are in a very precarious position. I would advise you to remember what our job is and what that entails."

As they left the briefing room to tend to their prep, Mechwarrior Davin approached Thao Prentice away from the others.

"Sir, I apologize for—"

"Stow it Mechwarrior. I have little patience for mistrust, which is exactly what you showed us in there. You are the first freeborn in a unit like this. Do you have any idea what kind of precedence that makes? Khan's Irregulars or not, an untrustworthy troop is dead weight in the battlefield.

"Now, I petitioned for your transfer, and I had full faith in your ability to pull the stuff off that we do on a regular basis. This unit is making history within our clan, and it is a massive privilege to be a part of it. Do not make me regret that decision."

As Thao walked away Davin just shook his head in frustration. Nothing in his life has been easy yet, and this didn't look like it was any different.

* * *

"_There. Load me up."_ Julian Buhallin's voice instructed Star Captain Hollin to update the trajectory coordinates for the PDC loaded in a special launcher on the belly of his craft. He is piloting a deep-space vessel with a small crew with the single purpose of

delivering Julian to this planet. It has been an arduous trip after detaching from his jumpship 36 hours ago and hiding in an asteroid belt in deep orbit to avoid detection by an active aerospace patrol force. The speed of his travel put him at over 2x standard gravity (Terra), so his men are taxed out and he is barely faring any better. They jumped several times in a row, with a new jumpship waiting at the arrival point of the last to alleviate the recharge time, running a two week trip into several days. That amount of coordination was incredible in itself, let alone Kael Pershaw having Falcon or Raven jumpships already in place and willing to work for him. He had to hand it to the guy; he had pull. "I have your coordinates here. Are you sure about this? Once you are out there, there is no turning back."

Julian tightened his face up in a mix of concentration and frustration as he for the final time contemplated his destination. Lying face down in his J-6 Personal Deployment Craft, or "Phantom" as his unit grew to call it, he thumbed the button to open the comm channel up to the pilot of his delivery vessel. "Trust me, that thought has been beating around in my head for the last thirty minutes. Just get it ready."

The Phantom was a developmental craft designed for stealth drops onto planets without the crowd-pleasing show of a dropship announcing its presence. The Jade Falcon scientist caste has been working on it for years, tailoring it to correct all of the problems resulting from all the testing, and it was ready to move from the "experimental" to the "operational" phase with the flick of a switch. About the size of a large pick-up truck, the J-6 PDC is fitted with a rather cramped, single-occupancy passenger bay, two storage compartments, retro-rockets, deployable wings, guidance computers, active probe and naval sensor equipment, radar-absorbing skin, heat shields, radiation shields, oxygen refiners, human waste storage units, and the best self-destruct mechanism you could ask for. And this model had one more neat little trick to it: camouflage. A layer of iron-ferrite and other common meteoroid components was fitted to the surface to make this craft look just like a floating rock. Underneath was a grid of shaped charges used to blow the casing off to allow for wing deployment and engine usage. The only thing it was missing was the hot tub.

"This is insane," Hollin mumbled to himself as he punched in the command for coordinate lock. He was going to fire that pod from an asteroid belt at the planet ahead of him and watch it avoid the aerospace patrols entirely by just floating by like a harmless rock. To keep the guise up, Julian could not blow the casing and use any kind of navigational devices to keep him on track if the initial launch direction shifted any. Lucky for him, there is nothing in space to veer your course off except gravity from planets and satellites, which the computer put into account.

"Insane?" Julian asked, slightly amused, partially at the fact that his transport was questioning the suicidal nature of his mission and partially because it eased the tension in his own mind.

"Yes, insane. I am firing you from an asteroid belt through known hostile patrols into an atmosphere hoping you will avoid all planetary defenses so you can land safely and run amok for Kerensky-knows what reason. Insane." Hollin has been sitting here in his craft for nearly two hours patiently waiting for Julian to finish his initial assessment and launch prep. This whole time consisted of him thinking about the nature of a mission he won't know about until his debriefing.

"Well, when you put it that way, I guess it is a little… adventurous. I will bring you back a souvenir if it makes you feel any better." Almost two hours of probing the surface has wracked his brain. The most active area he could find behind that horrendous cloud cover seemed to be the most logical area to land. He did not have the motorcycle loaded into his No. 1 storage bin to make room for additional gear, so he had to make his way on foot with _two_ bins worth of equipment to civilization and start an identity from scratch. Of course, no human, save a very strong elemental can carry two bins worth, especially on a hike. So luckily, the second one was over half filled with stabilization equipment and packaging to keep all the electronics he had from getting damaged in the drop. He had portable computers, tools for making/modifying clothing, and several other interesting items that combat units do not normally prep in their ships. It was very calculated and precise to say the least. For some reason, he would have considered it fun in his youth, but now, it is simply work.

"_I started the launch sequence. You know I will be out of here as soon as you are loose," _Hollin addressed Julian through the headset and gave him the last of luckily just a few concerned comments.

"I would not have it any other way. If they find me, at least you can get back and tell Kael what happened." Julian was now speaking while checking all of his status screens one last time. There were several of them arrayed in front of his face and an entire array of controls at his hands' disposal.

Hollin wanted to say something, like a parting phrase, but nothing came to mind. This guy was actually going to do it. He set aside any critical feelings and monitored the rest of the sequence until the Phantom was ejected from its launcher. No words were exchanged for the rest of the time. This Julian was far more reserved than other warriors he met in Kael Pershaw's unit. But then again, Hollin was quite the character himself. Or so he thought.

* * *

The Phantom made its way from the asteroid belt to the patrol lines in just over three hours. Since meteoroids don't just "shoot out of belts at planets", he had to play this slowly and steadily, just like a real one. Lucky for him, the patrolling craft just flew right by. It was so silent in the pod it would make most people crazy from the tension. If made, Julian had no way of defending himself other than launching himself at the planet with his rockets, and chancing any secondary defenses picking him off. No, he had to play this one cool.

After what seemed like the eternal descent toward this planet, he noticed the tilt of his craft aim for the surface. Since he could not navigate, he simply had the computer adjust for the rotation of the planet's surface and time it would take for him to drift that far. It took a total of six and a half hours before he was actually entering the planet's atmosphere.

Sensors immediately picked up a tracking unit on the surface. It was pinging him to identify his pod's trajectory and speed. While the probe was occurring he had to keep the pod in stealth mode, which means that the uneven rock surfaces making the pod look meteor-ish created some unpredictable wind resistance, making the ride extremely bumpy and rolley. He figured it was a sensor grid that would stop tracking him after confirming his innocent appearance.

* * *

Tech Marcus indifferently raised his eyebrows at his sensor screen in the relay command center of Silver City, the capitol of his home planet, Atlantis. His station was responsible for tracking the five to ten meteors that fall to Atlantis every day within its sensor grids. Since only those areas were monitored, no one really knew, or cared how many fell outside the grids. The majority of them wear away in the atmosphere before ever touching ground. Right now, one such meteor was falling rapidly through the middle atmosphere to a destination outside the city limits. Tech Garret leaned over his shoulder.

"Hey, are you going to help me wire this box up or not?" Garret asked Marcus earlier to help him wire up a new power router for several of the main systems in the center. A backup has been routing everything for several days now since the original one was long due for retirement and finally malfunctioned enough to warrant a replacement.

"Yeah, I'll be there in a second," Marcus replied.

"Hmm, that's a big one, eh?" Garret asked referring to the meteor on the screen.

"Not bad considering the density of our atmosphere." Marcus sighed, "But it's not going to hit anything important, so I've got a few minutes to spare."

With that, he got up and attended Garret to the far corner with a set of tools.

* * *

Julian has never been in such physical distress in his life. The reentry was forcing his Phantom to rattle his body around like a paint shaker. The craft started barrel rolling and the G-forces inside the thing finally maxed out at eight before starting to drop again. He kept a sharp eye on his sensor reading monitors and his finger on the release lock for the rock shielding so that the moment he wasn't under the gun he could deploy his wings and level off. So far this grid was larger than he expected and he was starting to get nervous about his ability to land at such a low altitude from this speed.

He sucked up the pressure and blinked away the colors that accompanied his state of being during the traumatic drop. Suddenly, the sensor screen showed him all clear, almost one and a half thousand meters below his preferred deployment point. Instantly his finger pulled the lever that ignited the shaped charges that blew his camouflage covering off. The wings deployed and the retro-rockets, already charged to their maximum ignition power, blew full force. The jolt was violent, but reassuring to Julian, who was waiting for the chance to level his craft off.

The Phantom struggled at slowing from such a speed before hitting the ground, but it succeeded and made it horizontal in time for Julian to catch his breath before initiating landing procedures. The original designs had forced the pilot to land the craft conventionally, like an old turbine jet found on Terra back in the years when it started expanding out into space. But recent efforts have successfully installed powered mounts that tilted the retro-rockets through a wider degree of motion, so that they could act as engines for a vertical landing. The deployment was late however, and his craft hit horizontal after his pre-determined time, so he was several kilometers off of his mapped LZ. He searched the landscape looking for a suitable clearing in the dense rainforest outside the distant city, and found one almost quicker than he expected to.

After landing, the craft powered down its engines, re-routed excess power to the heat sinks, and initiated the decompression procedures that would enable Julian to enter the atmosphere that was now being tested by the external sensors. The once quiet rainforest that had been suddenly disturbed quickly regained the eerie silence so befitting of this overcast planet.

* * *

Palen Miescher had his staff assembled with the station supervisors of each facility on Atlantis patched through for a vid-conference. The topic was how to deal with the threat of discovery.

Palen addressed his people, "As we know, seventy two hours ago a Goliath Scorpion vessel discovered our location and attempted a communiqué. The aerospace training unit on maneuvers was spotted, and the on-scene commander, for reasons irrelevant now ordered the ship down. A data stream was sent from the vessel to their suspected jump-ship relaying our location. Commander Lathan?"

Commander Lathan, the officer in charge of all military training and operations on the planet Atlantis stood front and center, demanding an audience with his posture and strength of voice. His close cropped hair and immaculate uniform reminded the scientists in front of him how much pride he took in his power, even if it is second to the Scientist General here. "The Goliath Scorpion jumpship was too far for us to track without sending scout teams ahead, which we will not do. We have increased patrols and expect an investigation team, most likely armed with escort to arrive within eleven days. After the initial assessment, we can see reinforcements within another eight."

"What if they send troops in first?" a voice asked from the small audience.

He started pacing side to side as he spoke with his hands clasped behind his back. "They will not. Their military is spread evenly to protect every one of their holdings in the Kerensky Cluster. Any usage of those without proper cause makes an unwanted vulnerable spot, and the Scorpions, few enemies do they have, cannot afford to open their lines up. Especially on what looks like bandit activity.

"Make no mistake about it, we will be overrun, eventually. They will run their reconnaissance and send for reinforcements when they see the activity here. There is no hiding it. I am having all our military training units in prep for planetary defense, which will mean some extra activity to get in your way in the coming week. This is all planned out in advance, so you will get instructions shortly on how to handle every phase of our defense."

Palen stepped in, "Operation Natural Selection, scheduled for launch next year, is pushed forward to nine days. All the material at your disposal is to be used until the operation is a go. All ships will be painted up, delivery devices manufactured, teams prepped, pilots recalled, and all research files localized and stored. When we get invaded, the stuff will already be on its way over to them, and by the time they figure out what happened, it will be too late. Our mission will be completed no matter what."

Forbers, the chief scientist at station two spoke up through his holo-projection, "Nine days? Sir, the material still has to be mass produced and cultured-"

"Nine days," Palen interrupted. "Use whatever you have to get it done. If we are late, the last ten years will have been for nothing."

Palen's senior advisor, Myson, spoke up, "Has Etienne Balzac been notified yet?"

Palen lowered his head and spoke as if he got a sudden headache, "The proper channels have been accessed. The message was encoded, so if he is compromised, it is his own fault. Sadly enough, by the time he gets the stream, our plan will already be in full swing."

Myson, feeling a bit unnerved by the lack of approval from the former Jade Falcon scientist-general, trusted the judgment of his commander and mentor. He nodded and thought out the next few days in his head.

"We all knew what we were getting into here, and I for one, feel no regret whatsoever. We complete our mission, or die trying. It is the way of the Clans."

Forbers asked for clarification, "So we have at least two weeks before they show up?"

Lathan answered, his demeanor and facial expression never changing, "Aff. That is the standard mobilization, prep, launch, and travel time required, taking into account the proper channels are accessed and everything is approved. Anything sooner than that on an official manner would be nothing short of miraculous."

* * *

Julian finished unloading his gear from the still smoking Phantom in the forest clearing. The gravity here was at 1.35x standard, which means everything, including himself was heavier. The atmosphere was also extremely humid, nearly saturating his clothes with sweat instantly. The problem with colonization of planets is that there are things you cannot necessarily alter to maximize your comfort level. Those were two of them, and the third just made a noise behind him.

Looking over his shoulder at the rustling in the tree line, Julian spotted what looked like a ferret-like creature the size of your average dog. Its eyes were yellow and its fur was black, in perfect contrast to the pink mouth and dark teeth. It looked very menacing as its head poked around the tree it used as cover to watch Julian unpack.

_Oh, great. Local wildlife. I HATE local wildlife._ Julian's eyes opened wider when he saw four more appear around the first, totaling five altogether. They were intently following his every move with their eyes, telling him that he was a meal soon if he did not act accordingly.

Accordingly meant him pulling his silenced pistol from his holster and switching out the armor piercing rounds for tumblers. The first animal began its charge, wailing a blood curdling shriek that make Julian's bones cold. The other four were not far behind it. They were kicking up mud behind them as the wailing eerily localized itself, with no echo or carry.

Already sweating, he aimed and fired at the alpha, ready to pump four more rounds off at the others. The leader's head exploded backward as the tumbler round hit its mark. The other four animals stopped dead in their tracks almost instantly, not even investigating the corpse of their late alpha. They headed back for cover and disappeared. _Heh, if THAT scared them, wait till they see this…_

Their retreat signified Julian's return to his bags. Within minutes he was hiking his way toward the supposed capital city. He hit the self-destruct remote module after attaining minimal safe distance, and peered over his shoulder to make sure thing went off properly. The Phantom's self-destruct sequence initiated, first frying all electronics, navigation gear, and hard drives. Then the armor blew off and the internal structure was incinerated, leaving no traceable parts left for any unwanted enemy to track back to the Falcons. All that time and effort up in smoke, just like that.

* * *

Star Admiral Leerais Ben-Shimon of Clan Goliath Scorpion boarded his _Lola III_ to prep his quarters and roll the flag up for departure. He just got through watching the vid-stream from the Red Aculeus. The Rho Galaxy Commander decided to send the Auriga from the Fire Wheel Battlegroup to investigate the matter. It had enough firepower to take out the projected aerospace defenses and the sensors to make a complete tactical map of the planet's surface and population centers. His job was to take a peek, and report back what was needed to subdue the threat presented.

The space marine Elementals were already in place and performing their security checks. This mission was not the most important one Leerais had been on, but he'd be damn sure not to mess it up.

Looking through the glass view port of his bridge, he settled into his command chair and stretched his fingers so they could fit into familiar controls. His pilots and navigators do the flying and communicating, but he liked to have control over the main view feed and a few other goodies. His personal screens all worked and showed the star of aerospace support in his hangers good to go. The time was close to depart, and it couldn't be a moment too soon in his opinion.

Nine days before he hit the system with the target planet. They would be long, but he knew some action awaited them when he got there. _Let the engines roll…

* * *

_

"Hey Tyler, this book you gave me is great! I haven't read anything like it yet." Tech Marcus marveled at an Edgar Allen Poe Anthology his new friend lent him two days ago. He hasn't stopped reading it, even after he finished it. He's almost on his third run through the book now, if he were able to read it during work. "Where did you say you found it again?"

Julian looked up, playing the part of interested friend like a trained politician. It scared Thao to see him pull this stuff off so well, but it was his job after all. "Block 19. There's a small book store there that you can get stuff at. But work credit's no good there, so you're out Kerenskies or a favor."

"Block 19? That's a rough area."

"Eh, not really." Julian got into the city and immediately set up base camp in some apartment he rented with the KE (Kerenskies, un-official clan currency) he had in his bag. His new name here was Tyler, of the technician caste. After studying the infrastructure of the city, he found out that it is Clan, so the caste system is in place here, if a little out of order. Luckily, the military and scientist controlled areas followed the same documentation procedures he was used to, so the equipment in his gear allowed him to counterfeit some transfer paperwork for the new identity. After he was in, he found the tech charged with watching the atmospheric activity screens and discovered a hidden love for old Terran fiction within. A simple trip to the slums of the city turned up a classic book that even Julian could enjoy, but it served a greater purpose than simple entertainment. It gave Julian the position needed to secure his unit's drop, even at the expense of a mere tech. Now he just had to play his hand right…

"Do you have friends there or something?" Marcus asked.

Julian looked casual and shrugged his shoulders as he spoke, "Nah man, I just know my way around people. It helps if you know what you're buying, but don't worry about it. I'll show you where it is some time."

Marcus approached this new "Tyler" from Station Five, the finally properly staffed workhorse of Silver City, with a book in his hand, and things flew smoothly since. "Cool, thanks."

Julian's wristwatch lit up, it was the receiver for his unit's eight-hour launch signal. They were going to insert soon, and they were in position.

"Hey man, my break's almost over. Those fittings for the new box come in yet?" Julian was referring to the pieces needed to organize the wiring feeding into the new electrical box Marcus and Garret attempted to set up the other day.

"Yeah, they came in this morning."

"I'll be by at the end of the shift to help you wire all that up properly. It'll get me out of my section again for a while."

"Wow, you know how to set those things up too?" Marcus was still awed at Tyler's many talents.

"Yeah, half of Station Five has my name on it. Well, the half that works anyway…"

"I heard about them over there. I'm sure you're glad to be transferred finally."

"And not a moment too soon, with all this activity going on and such. I bet they're pulling their hair out over there." Julian got up to leave since this conversation lost its productive nature.

"I hear that. I'll see you later." Marcus waved his friend away and returned to his section, where, with the exception of the dense clouds that will never open up, they showed clear skies for miles.

* * *

Star Commander Bree accompanied her commander through the corridor of their transport vessel. Thao Prentice has been rather quiet the last several days, trying to prepare himself for just about any surprise imaginable one they reach the surface of this 'mystery' planet. He was now going to check the equipment bay to make sure the proper prep material was making its way into his Phantom's storage areas.

"You okay with this? Six hours left." Bree was taking this quiet moment near the end of their trip to close the gap with her commander. The trip had been lasting a while, and all the closely timed jumps did their damage to the crew, who was just barely recovering when the craft entered the asteroid belt around said planet and sent its signal.

Thao continued walking, "This has pretty much been written in stone. I know things will pan out down there."

"But you do no look it. I have seen that face before." She was keeping up with his busy pace.

Annoyed, Thao responded, "What are you, my psych analyzer?"

"I just do not like the troop organization. Brevan for the reinforcements? I know he is a capable commander, but if we lose you down there—"

"I lead from the front, you know that." He showed his usual annoyance and frustration, but he was never one to yell. "I will not let this happen without me. We have Shaine in with his troops - what are you worried about?"

"This is trickier than anything we have done before. I just need to know that you are solid on everything. The last few months have been hard on you, loosing so many people on Huntress—"

"People die, especially in our line of work. I get choked up once and I never hear the end of it."

They rounded another corner and stopped in front of the equipment bay. Bree continued while he paused and turned to face her. "Maybe you care about your men too much."

Thao paused at that one. Compassion was not an admirable trait in a clan commander, especially one whose compassion may intrude on a mission, which, in Thao's line of work, could spell disaster for much more than his unit. "Maybe I do, but that keeps them sharp. I run the unit the way I want to run it, and I do not want this to be some loose-knit coagulation of troops trying to get transferred and screwing each other over to do so. Have you seen how well they have been getting along lately? I have not seen a circle of equals in over two weeks, and the last one was over who was paying for drinks. This is a good thing Bree, quiaff? Why do you hate it?"

"Because I see how you take it all. When is the last time we coupled?"

Thao sighed. He really did not want to think about these things. "Please, do not bring that up. It is nothing against you—"

"Exactly! You do not have to say that. You can tell me that I was not good enough for you or I am ugly or whatever, but you feel the need to make right for everything you do with everyone involved."

"Bree, I want to—" Bree put her finger on his lips, noting that she knows he is not like this due to any inefficiency on her part. She just wanted him to take a moment and think about what she said.

"I am just looking out for you. Keep it together down there, but let it all go when it is over. Please, for all of us. I am there if you need me." Bree moved to let him open the bay door.

Thao opened the door to find Point Commander Shaine quickly standing at attention and calling a full "Atten-hut!" for the other elementals in his point to perk up to.

Thao responded in kind with a courteous nod, "Carry on."

He walked past Shaine to check a computer screen readout of the gear to be placed into his Phantom by his tech. The gear issued was standardized, but of course, the way he ran his unit, each member was allowed to customize what they brought, as long as they could clear it with their star commander. For this particular mission, he was taking his command star, Alpha, which Bree lead, and a point of his support strider, headed up by Point Commander Shaine. On a cold-drop, as they call it when landing on a planet with no intel on the inhabitants/conditions, like this one, Thao thought it a good idea to have several elementals on-board. Though numbering only five and lacking the battle armor they are known for, their close quarters battle experience and massive size/strength/speed make them invaluable for the muscle needed in such situations.

Thao spoke a few words to his tech, who was preparing his Phantom and turned to leave everyone to their own devices. This is when he noticed Shaine still facing him, moving slightly to obscure the view of what was behind him from Thao. The scene was almost childish to anyone paying attention.

"Shaine," Thao started.

"Sir," he replied.

"What is behind you?"

He replied as he slowly moved to show Thao his prize, "Oh, this? Uhh…"

Behind him sat the clan upgraded version of the Man-Pack Particle Cannon, a mini-PPC normally used by two troops due to its weight and need for a battery charger. Clan elementals, with their genetically altered physique could easily handle one with the hydraulic harness by themselves, making them extremely dangerous to most armor and even battlemechs if need be. This was not a small, or quiet weapon by any means however.

"Oh, for Kerensky's sake… What part of "low profile" operation was lost in translation?"

Shaine perked up to reply, with his chest out, almost as if to make a reporting statement. "We do not know what they have down there. They may have heavy 'mechs or tanks for all we know, and I for one want to make sure we can hold our own if it gets thick."

Thao was unimpressed, shown by his raised eyebrows, "You are seriously going to bring that thing?"

Shaine nodded nervously, "With your permission… of course."

Thao, still half-thinking this was a joke, laughed it off. "Hah! Fine, but the only gear you sacrifice for space is your own. That includes rations and clothing. If you smell too bad for company, then you are stuck doing security the whole time."

Shaine replied as Thao turned to leave, "Fine with me."

Yale, the largest man in Shaine's unit, second to the commander himself, overhearing the conversation, perked excitedly at the new prospect, "Well, in that case…"

Yale grabbed his custom made heavy support machine gun, which had five barrels and fired 20mm high velocity, heavy hollow-point, carbon-tipped rounds at one of three selectable speeds. The belt-feed mechanism was the best clan techs could devise and has only a handful of recorded jams. A good gunner can conserve ammo by adding accuracy to his activities with the external camera assisted targeting display in his helmet's view-piece.

Thao turned at the sound of the gun's ammo jingling. "Oh man, this is going to _suck,_" he convinced himself as he turned his head back to the hallway and forced himself to stop worrying about the implications of landing a small army on a wet rock.

Bree stayed behind with the other men in the bay. "Shaine, keep it tight, okay?"

"Aff. I have it covered." Shaine turned to Yale, "Yale, pack extra deodorant with your ammo."

Yale's reply faded as Thao moved further down the hallway, "Son of a bitch…" Halfway down he heard his communicator chirp. It was the communications tech, with Julian's return message.

Thao entered the comm bay when the comm tech stood at attention. "Sir! I have the return message from our inside agent."

"At ease," Thao ordered, partially annoyed at the fact that the people outside his unit do not know that he doesn't care for traditional customs and courtesies. "What have we got?"

Thao listened to the message, which was an encoded, typed one sent via satellite transmitter on the main continent. How Julian gained access to this Thao had no idea, but it was not his job to worry about such details, it is only his job to exploit the results. The message was all he expected it to be, with short, precise details on the planet's atmosphere, political affiliation, planetary defense protocol, landing coordinates, and a launch time. The part he was interested in came in three comments. The first, said to "wear red", whatever that meant. The second was a wildlife alert, which was always a pain in the ass when dropping onto new planets. The third was the generic clan affiliation code. This meant that it had a clan society, but no particular one claimed ownership. This was mildly confusing, but these messages normally were. Too much info, if intercepted and decoded by the enemy, would spell disaster for the Nighthawks, so Thao grew to rely on Julian's judgment in these situations.

He moved the departure time up an hour and a half, gave the navigator the coordinates for initial launch, and ordered his unit to don red shirts. Then he popped his neck and moved onto the pilot's bay to see the view of the planet he was about to invade.

* * *

Julian leaned up against a wall in the relay command center in Silver City. Not but an hour ago he helped tech Marcus wire up a new feed box for a large portion of the circuits in the room. Unbeknownst to Marcus, Julian crossed several of his companion's wires and shaved enough insulation off of them for the electrical fire to ignite when he needed it to. The fittings for the particular wires were lose enough for him to pull the shaved ones together and start the thing off from the inside. It was primitive, but effective. Julian looked at his watch and found only ten seconds left until he had to distract everyone in the room, especially Marcus. The scene was calm so far, and it was almost a shame to disrupt a bunch of techs just doing their daily job so they could get home to their companions.

_Oh well,_ he thought as he pulled the lead wire just enough to hear the crackle that he was waiting for. Instantly the box blew open as a small electrical fire started inside, blowing several fuses and blackening out many secondary screens in the room. The people responding, including Julian playing the part of 'Tyler', scrambled around to get a hold of the situation. The fire alarm went off to compound the noise present.

"Get the extinguisher and the rubber gloves, now!" commanded Garret, still filling in for his absent supervisor. People moved, including Marcus, who was in the hallway getting the extinguisher. Several people rushed around in Julian's view as he finally spotted Thao's fifteen Phantoms moving across the surveillance monitor unattended by Marcus. Their blips were moving south along the main city's sensor net. In moments, they would drop into the tree line, making them invisible again.

Julian grabbed the extinguisher from an oncoming Marcus to pull the pin for him while he got his gloves on. "What was it!" Marcus demanded over the roar of people and activity.

"Don't know! Could be one of the leads! I hope the command circuitry isn't fried!" Julian responded with the sense of purpose expected in a concerned tech. In moments, the fire was put out and Julian breathed a sigh of relief as he saw Thao get the unit past the sensors. All was clear on his end. The siren took another 20 seconds or so to shut off, and after that, it was nothing but explaining to commanding officers and repair work. A long night awaited those stationed there.

Julian would buy Marcus a drink later to make up for it. After all, the guy wasn't that bad.

* * *

Thao's troops dropped in without incident. "Sit rep, now," he ordered into his comm unit.

"_Bree here, my unit is all accounted for."_

"_Shaine here, my men are good. Unloading our cargo now."_

"_Oh man… I think that ration pack is coming uggghhhhh!"_

Thao just laughed at the poor elemental. These guys could crush a skull in one punch if they wanted to, yet keeping lunch down was not one of their special powers.

It only took minutes to unpack the stuff, one bin worth of gear and the motorcycle. The coordinates were on the bikes and Thao lead the charge out of there. They rode out in the best formation they could keep in the forest to spot any response from the planetary defenses. He didn't know if Julian succeeded or not, and he never took chances. Once in range, he loaded up Julian's locator signal and aimed for pay dirt.

* * *

Forbers loaded up the new information for the last two successful phenotypes into his computer. The information was to be uploaded to a data-disc and sent on the delivery ship to its destination. His hand shivered suddenly before he put the disc in. The memories of his work here weighed heavily on him. Years of failed experiments stared him in the eyes, boys and men that trusted him with their lives arrayed in observation cubes, writhing in pain, on the brink of insanity. Every one of them stared at him, crying for help, or death. Either was beyond his control.

_Two generations it took to get it right,_ he thought. He picked up an old Terran book a while ago that spoke of a divine being that made everything, and decided all. He had friends back on his home planet that worshiped this being, and they called him God. Being a scientist, he had no place in his work for an all-powerful God, but they believed in him. In fact, they dedicated several hours a week in homage to this God. They believed that he created man, and that he alone has the right to give man life.

Of course, clan scientists have been splicing genes from extraordinary warriors to exploit certain traits for centuries and no negative 'divine' repercussions have befallen them. At least in Forbers' mind, the failure of the Clans in their crusade was not a divine punishment, but lack of foresight and devotion. He shared the belief of all the scientists here, all of them that set forth to succeed where the clans fell short.

He put the disc into the computer to begin the upload. The entire purpose of his being here was about to be fulfilled. That would make most men proud, but Forbers, he just wept inside. Humanity was starting to grow on him, in ways he would rather forget about. If there was a God, Forbers knew that his crime was too great to forgive. _Two generations, all suffered for this. I had better be right in the end.

* * *

_

Thao finally saw the city's lights over the horizon. It rained the entire trip, and continued to as they approached their destination. He had a feeling it was going to be raining pretty much the whole time they were here due to the atmosphere. There were no stars due to the thick cloud cover. In fact, the clouds were so low that several of the city's buildings were shrouded in mist, and the lights themselves made the area above it glow an eerie orange.

The group broke formation in favor of better ground since their traveling speed more than doubled once they hit a road leading up to the city. It looked like the inhabitants here tried to clear the forest out along the boarder of the city limits, but failed. The tree line is too thick, so the road is the only way they can approach and make their way into the highway system. They made it not but seven clicks before the weight turbulence of a _Bashkir_ omnifighter nearly swept Thao's bike over. The thing came up fast behind them and immediately spotlighted the lead bike and hit its megaphone.

"_Pull over immediately and identify yourselves."_

_Aww crap, _Thao thought to himself. The road was empty so far, which should have told him that the city was on some sort of security lock down. A five-lane highway isn't usually empty at this time in the evening. "Nighthawks, group up into your units and stay moving, I have to figure this out."

The _Bashkir_ continued to keep pace with them, its noise becoming a constant among the riders. _"Again, pull over and provide identification. This is your last warning."_ Thao noticed in his mirror one of the medium lasers on the bottom of the craft swiveling to aim at him. He inhaled deeply and swerved to the right as a large laser came at him from ahead and nearly blew him right off his ride!

"_Sir! Two Kit Foxes on our twelve, and they are opening fire!"_ Bree told him exactly what he needed to hear. "I want three units to keep moving, and speed up! Close the distance between us and the omnis! I need three people to prep flash grenades and light them off when I give the word." His plan was near suicidal, but what wasn't in his daily life?

The lasers continued to come in at them, barely missing on several occasions, accompanied by the omnifighter's support. The _Bashkir_ fired off its Streak SRM 2 at him, which he avoided by swerving even closer to the tree line. If he got caught in there at this speed, he'd be toast before he could scream. The road was not getting any dryer as he sped up even more to the Omnis ahead. And that's when Samme was hit.

"_Ah SH--!"_ screamed over the radio link as Samme's bike was hit by an LBX AC-5 cluster round. The _Kit Foxes_ moved into a better firing position and marked their range for the autocannons. It was only going to get harder from here.

Davin instinctually slowed and swerved his bike around to retrieve Samme, expertly avoiding several of his comrades as they flew past him toward the firing _Kit Foxes_. "I've gotcha man, hold in there!"

"Oh man does his grammar go to pot in a firefight?" Bree commented as she rode on.

"Stay focused!" ordered Thao. "Pull the flash bangs now and throw them behind you! Cover your eyes until they go off!" He prayed the disorientation that goes with them would not screw with their equilibrium. The helmets they donned had sonic protection measures in them, but all was chaotic in combat, and nothing could be relied on 100.

The three members, including Thao threw their flash bangs behind them as the _Kit Foxes_ got a missile lock. The explosion was phenomenal. A flash of white light completely threw the pilots of both _Kit Foxes_ and the _Bashkir_ off track while they zoomed in to track their targets. Thao successfully lead his unit through the legs of the 'mechs as they decided to stop constantly swerving side to side to avoid getting hit by oncoming fire. Everyone made it through except for Davin and Samme.

"Davin! Sitrep!"

Thao's headset lit up, _"I have Samme here, and the fighter followed you into the city. It's clear sailing for me, but I don't know where to link up with you guys."_

"Keep going and we will figure this out later. I cannot stop with this omni on my back—" _SMASH!_ Another SRM crashed behind him, reminding him that he is still moments from death any second now. "Bree! Take your men left and clear this area. Shaine, your men come with mine and we make our way right, through downtown!"

The group split up and weaved through the streets, increasing the distance between them and the angry _Kit Foxes_. Thao's group made it five blocks before he stopped his group to destroy the bikes, tear the red clothes off, and continue on foot to avoid detection. The _Bashkir_ lost them after just one block, but was still searching. This had to be done quickly. _Why all this action over some bikers, _he wondered.

They stopped, ditched the bikes, popped incendiary grenades into each of them and threw their red shirts on top to destroy all their evidence. The explosion would be seen, even from within this closed parking lot, so Thao immediately led them near a building that they could group up in. On his way there, the bikes went up, and he saw about ten men running through the fire after them. _These must be the ground responders._

"Inside!" he ordered. Yale got inside first and unpacked his machine gun. Things were going to get real violent real fast.

* * *

Moving away from the new explosions behind her, Bree and her unit continued along on their bikes for four more blocks before the last thing she ever expected to see just landed in the road ahead of her.

A _Centaur_ protomech stood there, gun aimed right at her bike when the reality of the fast moving situation settled in. "MOVE!" was her only command as she hit evasive action. The micro laser missed her and took out a vehicle behind her and her men. The thing seared right through the windshield and rear window, continuing to singe another car behind it.

Three _Rocs_ landed nearby, two on rooftops and another one near the original _Centaur_. They blocked off traffic and Bree saw the roads lock up, people running from their cars to cover. This was pandemonium.

Several missiles rained down on them, blowing pieces of road and sidewalk all over, which only added to the resistance caused by the heavy rain. She moved her bike to the right to avoid the latest volley, to which the new _Roc_ on the ground responded in kind. It drew its main weapon up right as she kicked the front tire of her motorcycle up to ramp over a parked car. She flew right over the laser, which blew through a building behind her. Landing behind the _Roc_, she continued until the block to her right opened up, luckily right before the wall of stopped traffic. Her unit followed her to the right, having to slow down to make the turn.

One of her men skidded violently toward a parked car, and he had to jump off his bike before it hit. He skidded on the ground up to the crashed bike, which was imbedded in the car at this point. His comrade slowed to pick him up as several micro laser beams damaged the road around him. He got his friend as two SRMs nailed the crashed bike, destroying it in one hit. He sped off, fishtailing for nearly twenty meters before gripping the road. The two _Rocs_ on the rooftops jump jetted over to intercept.

* * *

Yale opened up a devastating volley of machine gun fire into the oncoming men. They scattered, but three of them took the brunt of the fire, their bodies ripping into pieces instantly under the hailstorm of bullets. Yale had to duck back however, because the remaining seven men pulled their own rifles up and started return fire. Yale fell back to join the rest of his group further inside the lobby, where Thao pointed at the door leading to the basement parking garage.

Shaine effortlessly kicked the door in and started filing the men in ahead of him. The seven men stormed the windows of the lobby, firing wildly as they approached. Yale opened up another ripping salvo and caught another two men, turning them into pâté. Shaine and Thao gunned down two more from cover behind the concrete fountain. Thao ordered the retreat and the three of them moved through the basement door right as the wall around it exploded into a million fragments under the weight of oncoming fire. Yale dropped his gun so he could run faster and threw a fragmentation grenade through the doorway behind them, catching most of their pursuers since they had no time to block the door shut. The men filed into the parking garage where the lead man was cutting open a sewage duct with his mini-torch.

Yale, farthest back, yelled ahead to inform his commander that he was going to deal with the new figure, the first one to emerge from the smoke and debris filled doorway while they got out of there. "I will catch up with you!" he yelled as the new body literally jumped the forty meters and closed his distance with near impossible speed. Surprised at his opponent's opening move, Yale did not effectively block the first punch thrown, but just barely dodged it. The man's fist ate right through the concrete corner of a support column like it was styrofoam and he continued to swing. Yale avoided another aggressive barrage as one of the man's kicks actually knocked a car sideways.

Thao just stared in awe as this person displayed strength and speed beyond any human he has ever known. Yale seemed to gain the upper hand with a joint lock, and then a break. The man's arm was caught and Yale expertly broke his wrist, then elbow, then fluidly turned and ripped his shoulder out of socket. The man, visibly showing no pain, threw his arm back into place, and slowly made a fist, signifying that his arm was still in combat condition.

"Impossible…" Thao muttered as the man resumed his attack against Yale, who was awestruck at his adversary's recovery. One flat hand caught Yale in the chest, throwing the elemental back ten feet and into a brick wall, imprinting a silhouette of his body in the surface. On his trip back to he ground, the man punched Yale in the thigh, instantly breaking his femur and possibly his pelvic joint at the same time. Yale hit the ground hard and spit blood onto the floor.

Shaine grabbed Thao by his shoulders and pulled him back through the sewage opening the rest of his unit escaped through. He could not believe it himself, a man half Yale's size completely obliterating an elemental in several hits, but this was not the time to freeze up. If the rest of his unit was compromised, the mission was lost. Thao struggled to return to Yale and save him somehow, but was underpowered against Shaine, who pushed him the rest of the way down the passage to the rest of his men. The last site he saw was Yale under the man, who had his arms up and clasped together, preparing for the killing blow. The bone crushing impact resonated through the parking garage and through the sewer passage and made Thao's blood run cold. But he had enough adrenaline to keep his focus now, which was the proper escape from that abomination.

He lead his men through nearly a kilometer of tunnel before returning to the surface, where they simply walked onto the street and attempted to blend in with the civilian population. It was tense, but eventually, it worked.

* * *

Bree was still in the thick of it. The _Rocs_ pursuing her lit up her driving lane with several medium laser barrages, all narrowly missing and nailing the surrounding vehicles. So far, she counted no civilian casualties, which put her mind at ease, just slightly. She sped further and spotted a traffic tunnel extending from one section of highway to lead… somewhere. She really did not care at this point. She gave the order and her unit turned toward the entrance. Two _Centaurs_ appeared behind her and positioned themselves on top of two parked cars for a straight line of fire with their LRMs before launching six at them. The missiles streaked at them, increasing their speed as they moved along. Time seemed to stand still as the pedestrians of Silver City looked in awe at the destruction going on around them. The missiles hit the inside walls of the tunnel and the asphalt before it, so narrowly missing the motorcycles that the bikes themselves skipped forward from the blast.

The smoke created gave them the cover they needed to get out of range of the protomechs and navigate the highway tunnel system. A kilometer down, they dismounted their bikes and commandeered a truck to pack their gear in and drive out into the city without the omnifighter picking their outfit up again.

* * *

Davin continued his trek into the city unscathed, as all the attention was taken away from his single cycle. Once in, he and Samme dismounted, grabbed their gear, blew the bike, and made way on foot further into the city. They wandered into a rather detestable part of town, which was fine with Davin, who had no luck raising Bree on his comlink. The city must have had an extensive communication network, because it was blotting out his short-range signal.

After a few kilometers, Samme decided he needed to get his leg taken care of. Just then, they saw a transport truck with several protomechs on board fly past them with its lights and sirens on, so they knew the heat was on. Davin's gamble was to get a room at a local hotel and provide medical attention to his comrade. He paid for the room with his packed KE and secured the place in record time. He was fortunate to find such a place, as clan held worlds had assigned living quarters and residential areas. This was defiantly the part of society any clan pretended didn't exist.

A watch schedule was planned out between the two men and they kept watch the whole night while the other one slept. Samme was first hesitant about working alone with a freebirth, but circumstances gave him no option.

Davin entered the room, secured the door and windows, and unpacked his bags. He felt the sheath of his katana as he unraveled the cloth around it from the base with a delicate touch. The embodiment of his mentor lay in this blade, a blade he had earned through years of dedication and loyalty.

Samme saw the sight and couldn't help but wonder what this freebirth was doing with a sword. It was not standard issue, and he hasn't seen a sword in combat a single time throughout his tenure as clan infantry. "What is that doing in your gear?"

Davin, smoothly transitioning from the deep thought of his sensei in his village, and the countless nights he spent in his basement learning the art of kenjutsu away from the prying eyes of the ever-so-restrictive warriors disgraced with pulling police and security duty to Samme in response to his question. "It is something special to me, okay?"

"Fine. Do you even know how to use that thing?"

"Want to find out?" Davin kept his face cool and turned it to look Samme in the eye. This sword embodied power, and that power was his responsibility to control. It was a great feeling.

"Not really. I just want some food and sleep. You get first watch."

Davin did not show his disgust for the trueborn that seemingly took command over him with no apparent reason or regard to who saved whom two hours ago. He just placed his katana next to his bed and finished with his bags.

* * *

Thirty minutes later, Bree and Thao linked up through radio correspondence and followed Thao's tracker to a small café on the north side of the city. The team waited outside the building, splitting up into two groups: one to cover the street corner in case of police interdiction, and the other in the alley to keep watch for a rear attack.

Thao alone entered the café, and was relieved to find Julian at a small table by himself with his feet up reading a book.

"This has been the worst night of my life," Thao started as Julian lowered his book and observed his soaking wet friend. Julian slid the other seat out in a silent offering. Thao took it gladly and looked around. The café was a peaceful place, full of civilians socializing and not paying much attention to the miserable aura around Thao.

Julian put his book down, still looking irritatingly calm. "What's the count?"

Thao remembered that civilians still use contractions, and it was something he would have to try out to keep his 'cover'. He was not used to this like Julian was. "I lost three coming in. They are pumping some real firepower at mere motorcyclists."

"The city is on lockdown. No traffic in or out without military permission. All training units have been recalled it looks like, and they are apparently using maximum force in keeping this city tight. I didn't know until after I sent my invite. I'm glad the rest of you made it." Julian leaned in closer so everyone around couldn't pick up their conversation.

"Maximum force? They have…" Thao stopped, not wanting to draw attention to himself, because he felt like exploding right now. "What _is _this place?"

Julian sat back in his chair, still speaking softly, but not drawing any attention to himself. In fact, he almost smiled. This dark hair strung down past his chin and a thick goatee made him look very different from the last time Thao saw him. Apparently this is the look he chose to blend in with. "I count five clans here, and the scientist caste runs things, not the warriors."

"What? How can that be?" Thao interjected.

"This is a different… society here. The scientists set it up in their image and rewrote the laws as they saw fit. There is some kind of grand agenda going on that's in full swing right now, that's why you came up against such stiff resistance."

"Okay, so which clan is in charge?"

"That's the funny part, it is pretty equaled out. Though you will find _this_ interesting: the five clans are the Falcons, Ravens, Hellions, Jaguars, and Burrocks."

"What! What universe did I land in?" Thao was on the verge of laughing and crying at the same time.

Julian leaned in for the closer, "This is what Kael Pershaw feared most. The scientist conspiracy we caught onto in our clan? It's big, and it's all right here. We were just the beginning."


	3. Chapter 2: Agenda

**Chapter Two: Agenda**

Etienne Balzac sat at his computer terminal after his day's work ended. He should have left to turn in for the night, but he was known for staying late. After being supplanted as Scientist-General of Clan Jade Falcon, he was treated as nothing more than inadequate space-filler. For some reason though, he kept an air of respect about him, though none showed any toward him. One reason for that is that all his friends, co-workers, and co-conspirators were separated and stuffed into other go-nowhere posts working on projects too small to be noticed by the scientist command staff.

Tonight however, he played it tired to dispel any signs of his anxiety. He finally received word from Palen Miescher, now commanding officer of the Natural Selection project. Regular updates were filtered through Etienne, as he still had intimate knowledge of the project, or so he thought. His lower station however, prevented him from now traveling out to Atlantis or contributing his clan's resources to the operation, pretty much making him a useless appendage. He thought that Palen kept him involved for peace of mind on most days, but this was the only amount of importance Etienne found any more: the fact that what he started would change history.

Tonight's message however, was not a regular transmission. It was encoded as usual, but informed Etienne that the mission was compromised and the plan was pushed up. Further details would be sent after confirmation of its success, which it gave no hint as to when that would be. It was bland for a reason, and Etienne knew why. If it fell into the wrong hands, someone could not decipher what any of it meant, which gave the scientists the advantage through and through. And for good reason, because Kael Pershaw entered the office right as he closed the message.

"Working late, quiaff?" Kael entered what was a dimly lit room, which cast eerie shadows across his mostly artificial body. It was dramatic, even though he was not known for dramatics. Etienne had to swallow back a large ball of nervousness though, because he knew a visit from Kael was never a good thing, especially when you have evidence of your involvement of a multi-clan conspiracy behind you.

"Yes. I like to take extra care in my projects." Etienne chose his words carefully. "What brings you here, Kael?"

"Oh, I just enjoy seeing my work up close, that is all." Kael took a seat and folded his hands together, his mask forming shadows over his crinkled face from the lamp on his opposite side. "What are you working on tonight?"

Nervousness evolved in the form of sweat and difficulty of breathing. "Genetics, of course. I have been working on isolating the gene that determines the length of your fingers."

"That sounds interesting," Kael replied quickly, completely lacking sincerity or interest. "Tell me something…"

"What?"

"What do you call a sparrow that is plucked out of the sky by a diving Falcon?"

Etienne knew where this was going, but Kael developed this sense of humor in the past few years that only made his personality more dreadful to work with. "Unfortunate?"

"A meal. You are food Etienne, a fat, sloppy meal. I know something that you do not, and in time, it will consume you."

"I don't understand. What is this all about exactly? My finger research has not broken any—"

"Your finger research is as relevant as your existence right now. I will make sure every secret is forcibly torn from your mind so that all that is left is a hollow shell barely capable of feeding itself. The Falcon owns you now Etienne," Kael got up as Etienne started to visibly sweat through his shirt. Several elementals entered the room and seized him. "Your faithful service will finally be rewarded." With that he smiled, and the scientist's heart skipped a beat. Only half of Kael's mouth is visible from under his mask, so while half of his crinkled face is smiling like some cat that has found a mouse, the other artificial half was completely blank and devoid of all emotion. The image was permanently burned in Etienne's mind as he was taken away.

* * *

Davin spent the last two days of his life searching for signs of his unit while trying to assimilate as much information about this planet as he could. All that training Kael Pershaw put him through on sociology and psychology was finally paying off. The most he found was a news article about a local gang known for wearing red clothing breaking security protocol and ignoring the orders of the security detail on the west side of Silver City the other night. Attempts to bring them in failed as several training units jumped their boundaries and opened fire in public. He figured Julian knew about this gang and had the clothing planned as such a scapegoat from before the unit launched. _Clever guy, _he thought. All attempts at raising either Bree or Thao Prentice on the comm have failed. He tried several locations and was sure that if he continued, he would be picked up eventually by the indigenous law enforcement.

An entire day spent at the library bore no more clues as to the background of this society. There were more scientific research documents found there, and the databases were filled with past historical research and scientific personalities, but that was it. He already figured out that this place was run by the scientist caste, but he knew nothing about how long it was here, and why it existed at all.

Samme is taking his recovery pretty well. Being an elemental, he is used to harjel taking care of most of these things, and some simple field medicine seems pretty primitive at this point, but he is not complaining. Davin noticed a large silence between the two the first day, and he chalked it up to him being freeborn. But the last 24 hours have been an improvement, as Samme relied on Davin for food and other arrangements. He was just glad that the warrior caste was so absent here that this part of the city was allowed to degrade into the state it is in. Davin never saw so many unauthorized shops and unregistered families living on a clan world before.

Tonight he was going to perform some close conversation with the locals to get some information. First stop, the local tavern…

* * *

The interrogation area stunk of human feces and air hung of defeat. Yale sat in an operating chair, shackled by every limb with clamps around his genitals and head. Palen finally arrived to oversee the questioning of their new prisoner, whom he hoped spoke by now. The electrodes on his head were targeted at the pain receptors in the brain, allowing the interrogator complete control over the comfort level of the prisoner. This was more effective than any other form of primitive torture used to date. Well, that, and the amount of hallucinogens and truth serums used. The electric shocks proved so violent at some point that his colon spasmed and released its contents. No one was willing to clean him up, but preferred him to smell his own waste through the senses of one jacked up on enough drugs to throw an elephant into a spin.

Yale sat there drooling with only one thought in his mind: he dwelled on the hatred he had for his captors and wished them the most painful deaths they could imagine. Every single prisoner he handled received the care of clan medical technicians and facilities promoting well-being and integration into his clan if they were worthy of bondsman status. Torture was something left to the Inner Sphere barbarians who only loathed their fellow man. Sixteen hours worth of pain made no difference to him. Kael's training employed several torture sessions, including ones with the pain-inducers. While this one was endless, the worst to await him was death, which he welcomed. He knew he was too far along to survive without proper medical attention, which was something he was sure his captors would deny him.

"Have the drugs been monitored? Maybe they are numbing him to your probes." Palen paced around Yale in an attempt to figure this man out.

The lead interrogator looked up from his status screen, "We monitored everything pumped into him. He should have talked hours ago. I still don't know how he's held out this long."

"What have you found out?"

"Well, we cannot tell which clan he is from because he lacked a codex. We are waiting for DNA confirmation to tell us which genes were used in his makeup."

"How long?"

"Another few hours. All of our resources have been shifted to our operation's launch, so it is proving difficult to get this little thing across."

"Get it done." Palen was out of patience with this. He knew this one was an elemental, he could tell that much from his frame and build. But he had no clan affiliation, no identity, and no post here on Atlantis. What the hell was he doing here?

"AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGGHHHH!" Yale was shot again with the electrodes, inducing every limb in his body to spasm at once and foam to form at the corners of his mouth.

Palen lowered his head to get close to Yale. "Just a little cooperation and this will all end. What have you got to lose?"

Yale found the energy to speak weakly, _"The… pleasure…"_

"What was that?" Palen asked, getting close to his face to hear him correctly.

"…_Of watching… you die…"_ and with that Yale lifted his head ever so slightly and spit his foam into Palen's face.

Palen jammed his thumb into Yale's eye out of pure anger, puncturing the lens and forcing fluid down his cheek. Yale couldn't even scream at this point. All that came out was a choking sound and some wheezing.

Suddenly the heart scan went flat, signifying Yale's passing. "Resuscitate him," Palen ordered. "He is not done yet."

"Sir, we have tried this for more than half a day. He is not speaking," his tech answered.

"I gave an order!" Palen screamed. "You will try again, and again if need be, until his brain is incapable of speech, understand?" With that he stormed out of the room.

The lead tech just looked down at his computer monitor and activated the defibrillators to drop and start his heart again. After seven tries, he declared the prisoner clinically dead and shut his equipment down.

* * *

Palen sat in his chair, furious. His office was rather serine compared the stale environment normally seen in these complexes. He clasped his hands buried his face in them. _What kind of monster have I been forced to become?_

He thought back to the day he met with Etienne Balzac and heard his proposal for Atlantis. He was the Smoke Jaguar Scientist-General back then, with so much going for him. He was neck deep in the protomech development that he almost considered Etienne crazy to ask him to divert Jaguar resources to some fantasyland made to create the perfect human being. But after listening to him, he was convinced.

For years he filtered Jaguar resources to Atlantis, while Etienne worked with the Snow Ravens, Ice Hellions, and Burrocks to form a circle of influence. Clan Jade Falcon had no clue of the amount of resources Etienne was pilfering to support Operation: Natural Selection, but it did eventually boot him from power. Their branch of the watch caught wind of his dishonesty and took immediate action. Luckily for Palen, the bigger picture remained a secret.

He was so optimistic then, almost too optimistic for his own good. Clan Smoke Jaguar at the time was getting stricter and stricter, but their annihilation took care of that. All he had left was to take what resources got lost in the mix and transfer them to his new home in uncharted space where the fruits of his labor signified his eventual existence. There he took over as chief scientist and oversaw the development of a new society. Every bit of energy he had he put into the project, and it kept him busy for years. And now it would all come crashing down.

The years have not been kind to him, and he was forced to kill off masses of people in the name of science. In the end he did it because he believed it was the destiny of the Clans to overcome their enemies, and nothing should stand in their way. Not even human life if need be. _This is for the greater good, _he told himself. He was the only one willing to go as far as was needed to go; did what needed to be done. He had to believe that.

* * *

Thao Prentice really wished he got a full night's sleep before this. Julian got four passes ready to go for him, Bree, and two other people in the unit. A field trip was organized to the nerve center of Silver City to pull as much information possible about the place and the upcoming operation. Julian, Bree, and her troop were scientists for the day, while Thao and his troop fielded an indigenous codex found on this planet, appearing to be some kind of modified version of their Falcon ones. Once again Thao did not want to know how his friend got a hold of these things. Information was given to them by Julian as to their unit affiliation and disposition, both modifiable. He claims that so much activity is going on, that if they keep a low profile and speak with confidence, then the whole thing will be a breeze.

Julian caught wind of something big going down in a few days, and made his timetable extremely tight. Not but 32 hours after Thao landed he was infiltrating a capital complex under the guise of some random warrior. Though he was not leading the way, he still felt some form of responsibility over the unit present. Julian could not reassure him enough about their safety, at least after seeing what that law enforcement guard did to Yale in hand to hand combat.

All five of them entered the complex through the front doors at opening time and slid their ID bracelets over the scanners. They were all registered okay and proceeded to follow Julian to the information center.

"Heh," Julian started. "Normally I have to hack into some database and download schematics to find my way around places, and this one has a central map here all ready for us. You have to love it."

Bree took her troop while Thao took his in another direction. They split off while Julian departed on his own. He claimed that he works better that way anyway. Thao knew better than to question it.

* * *

Bree kept track of the time on her watch as they neared the entrance to the division she chose to check out. The 'Operations Area' was not nearly as heavily guarded as she thought it should be, but from what Julian said, warrior presence here is not very abundant.

She gained access again with her bracelet and had her wingman follow her in. The room itself was a large arena with loads of activity going on in the center at several identical stations. There were transport craft spread around with techs in and out of them, installing some sort of propulsion system. She had to move to let numerous techs and scientists by, each moving with a sense of purpose. She thought it best to just play it cool and act as if she was overseeing part of the ship assembly.

Nowhere has she seen different castes working so seamlessly together. Jade Falcons loved their caste system, and always adhered to it, on and off of duty hours. Bar fights ended up splitting into laborers versus merchants, technicians vs. scientists, warriors vs. everyone, etc… But this here was something to see. She could only imagine the family oriented Ghost Bears or Blood Spirits coordinating so well, though these people had no clan affiliation on them.

Near one of the ships she observed a rather tight passenger bay with an extended storage area. Part of the area was dedicated to the crew's supplies, and the other part was refrigerated and sealed, as if to carry some kind of bio-hazardous material. It was very unusual indeed.

Her wingman struck up a conversation with a tech working on the electrical for one of the ships and asked how the timetables were going. She exhaustedly reported that they were pushed to the limit here to make their launch time of four days. These things were built from scratch, and the only thing allowing them to work so many continuous hours is the priority of resources they have at their disposal. Apparently, anything they want in support of Operation: Natural Selection they get without question. No funding issues, no personnel shifting, no nothing. This was it, like a football team running two-minute drill.

Of course Bree was mostly curious about what went in the ships and where they were going. No one here knew exactly what was to be stored, as they only received the specs for the containers, but she was able to oversee one of the navigation computer programmers. Acting like she was testing some equipment out, she ran a system check and activated the memory coordinates logged into one of the ships. It read Ironhold, Hector, and Lum: the capitols for the three remaining resident clans' homeworlds.

_Are they planning a biological attack on these planets, _she wondered? They were deep space vessels with no programming for Jumpship connections, so she figured they were going to make the trip by themselves. This was confirmed by the stasis equipment in the corner of the arena to be installed for the prospective crews. _But the only way they can land on these planets is if they have current merchant or military naval codes…_

After a little more investigating she was able to confirm the current landing code for Ironhold, and a shiver ran down her spine.

* * *

Julian was enjoying the quiet atmosphere of the archive chambers. There were several computer stations and server databases to store all the relevant information. A supposed Loremaster even sat and worked his way through some data screen as Julian passed with a courteous nod.

He made his way to one of the terminals and opened the menus. He maneuvered his way to the historical timelines, which included many maps and demographic records. While reading through personal descriptions, the Loremaster approached Julian from behind.

"And what brings you here?" He asked suddenly over Julian's shoulder.

Julian had two ways he could play it: official business or self- education. This archive was not guarded, but not public either. The slight smile on the Loremaster's face with no sign of critical inquiry gave Julian the answer. "Oh, hi. Well, with all the activity going on here, I really need to get my mind off of work for a little bit."

"Is that so?" The Loremaster took a step to the side for a better view of Julian's face. The Loremaster himself was pretty old, with bionic eyes used for information analysis. It would have been slightly creepy to anyone not accustomed to accepting just about everything he saw.

"Yeah. The other day I took the bus home like I normally do, but noticed the structures in the Veruvian district." The Veruvian district is slightly more historical, containing the library and municipal offices. Several statues and diverse architecture resided there and helped it stand out from the rest of the city. "I realized that I never read anything other than the approved technical guides provided to me during my schooling."

"The library is open to general research. This is a government facility with needed clearance."

Julian leaned in closer for effect, "Well, since my application to the archival training department was approved over the others in my class, I have been too eager to get started. It is another few months before I get reassigned and start my studies." The Archival Training Department groomed the Loremaster's assistants and staff. They were privy to the information within these walls, and it was a very difficult job to get into. Especially for a tech, which Julian was posing as.

"That is a very prestigious opportunity you have…"

"Xavier."

"…Xavier. You must have intimate knowledge of our filing system and some exposure to our records protocol."

Julian was on to his game. "I do. Want to see? How about architecture…" Julian winded through the computer program to find some information on the civil engineering teams that worked on the Veruvian district's structures and the load outs of their plans.

After some navigating, he pulled up the correct information. The Loremaster looked impressed, for one who hasn't gone through all the training yet. "Hmm… you are an eager one." He looked around for a moment, looking for prying eyes. "You may indulge yourself for a bit, but I must leave in twenty minutes for a conference. You will have to be out of here by then.

"Understood. Thank you," Julian replied with the best genuine smile he could come up with. He wanted to look slightly peppy, with some phase of gaining maturity. It was like a trainee being allowed to fire his rifle for the first time.

With that, the Loremaster left Julian to his own devices and he pulled up general history documents and more specifically, military reports recorded for higher security documentation. These are the things the general population would not have access too.

The download did not take long and he did not want to waste time reading things here when he could do it back at the safe house. He took his stuff, packed it into his official technician's carrying case, and blended back into the general activity.

* * *

Thao and his troop moved in toward the command center. This place was moderately guarded and housed several security checkpoints with metal detectors and pat-downs. The activity around was so quickly paced that several scientists were let through with certain code words. Thao had no clue how to access these words, as each guard knew a different series and the proper responses. It was nearly frantic to say the least, which he could use to his advantage.

Once scanned they were allowed into the command terminal, which left them a small handful of doors to go through before they could get to the creamy center of this colossal doughnut. Luckily, the unit identification given to him by Julian let them through. They were from the fourth training cluster sent in to confirm supply delivery of several tons of ammunition and military controlled substances: pentaglycerine and C8 to be exact. Supposedly, the change in personnel on their side left a gap in the inventory documentation, and they needed the stuff for some phase of Operation: Natural Selection. They, of course, were not briefed on the specifics, only that they needed to confirm the delivery and safekeeping.

Once through, Thao made his way to the command center for a quick peek. Inside he found a massive array of techs and commanders observing the day's operations. It appeared that several aerospace patrols were circling the planet with several transport and reentry vessels. He was relieved to find the absence of a warship. That would make things considerably easier later on. Two stars of fighters were on training maneuvers while another four were in patrols. It was odd, since most planets have a warship with the accompanying support defending itself, but he guessed something of that size and importance would not be easy to steal away from a clan unnoticed.

After making a short trip across the rear of the floor, he noticed several ground units in training through observation screens. They mainly consisted of light omnimechs, though some heavies and mediums were spread through there. They were establishing defensive positions around the three cities on the continent and several military complexes.

Before his luck ran out, he avoided eye contact with any of the commanders and made his way to the door and seeked out the server room. It was rather small, and kept a very uncomfortably low temperature to prevent overheating. Two techs were in there doing some scheduled checks. They perked up and inquired of Thao's presence.

"My commander told me to keep an eye on the activity in here. They will be running another drill shortly and want to make sure you are not in the middle of anything he needs." He responded with the fervor of the clan Warriors he grew up around, though he hated to fill that archetype.

"Sir, Commander Lathan knows what we're doing in here. We are not in the middle of any exercise protocol programs. Which commander sent you in here?"

Thao knew the answer to this one, as he has heard it a million times before from subordinates. "Look, I am just doing what I was told. The sooner you finish in here, the better. I will give them the go ahead when you leave. You know how tight everyone is right now. I dare not ask them any questions."

Looking seriously annoyed, the lead tech quickly finished what he was doing and packed his stuff up. They left, probably with the intention of taking this to their supervisor, which Thao knew would not give them much time to get out of there.

His troop, chosen specifically for his computer skills, took his gear and started chewing through the firewalls. Most of the time, hackers have trouble getting into a computer from the outside due to all the security in place, but this was the main monster. He was able to locate the firewall programs and reset their codes to ones that he knew. Most of the time, they were rarely looked at, especially on a planet as isolated as this, as no other factions probably tried to hack into this, so it would more than likely be a matter of time before they were accessed again, long enough to miss Thao and his unit altogether.

"Almost done there?" Thao was already getting impatient. He hated this wolf-in-sheep's-clothing crap. The deceptive nature of it still left a bitter taste in his mouth.

"Aff, just another two programs, or I will have to start from the beginning."

"I just want their military resources, unit locations, and personnel listings. After that, we are out of here."

"I copy that sir. Downloading now."

Not but a minute and a half later, Thao was out of there with his man and a blueprint of the planet's defenses in a pocket in his underwear. He just had to play it cool to the door.

Just as he rounded the corner toward the terminal, he heard the voice of the annoyed tech he ordered off behind him with several more footsteps in his party. This must have been his supervisor, as the quiet conversation was ripe with frustration and confusion. Another ten feet… five feet… ID check… body scan… and door! He was out, right as security locked the place down. Funny enough, no one outside so much as flinched, like they were used to this all day. Thao immediately walked to his ride and zigzagged his way back to the safe house.

* * *

Two bars were all it took to prove to Davin that this place is real boring. He couldn't figure it out. Maybe the uptight nature of the Falcon's lower castes made them more lively in their off time. Being freeborn, he knew full well how much fun, or nasty depending on your lifestyle, a bar could get with commoners. Samme on the other hand, only drank with trueborn warriors before this, so he is amazed at the variety of conversations not dealing with battle and sports stories. The warrior caste has plenty of color, but not quite in the same shades as the other castes, who mix more regularly together in recreation.

The third bar, however, proved to be the place he was looking for. Particularly in a scientist that went by the name of Yon. It so turns out that Yon has had a very stressful week, and the liquor is great for helping vocal people bleed their frustrations in inappropriate places. Davin was sure to get a seat next to him, while Samme limped himself onto the stool past Davin.

"So, what was I supposed to do? Let the thing go? It was eighty kilograms! Teeth like that can do some damage if you… hey! What?" He just finished his one sided conversation with a bored tech who found the dartboard more interesting at the moment. The tech left Yon mid sentence, which is the opening Davin needed.

"Animal problems?" he started, getting the scientist's attention.

Turning, he gladly continued, or thought about it. A moment of thought passed while the scientist re-centered himself. "Bar keep! Another Harlequin here! Thanks. Good man." Harlequins seemed to be the specialty drink on this planet. Most planets had a drink "home brewed" so to speak, made locally, which gave travelers much to enjoy if they liked that sort of thing. These drinks in particular were not nearly as strong as the fussionaires Davin grew accustomed to, but then again, many Falcon things were slightly overboard when compared to their counterparts. "You interested in animal stories?"

Taking a sip of his new harlequin, Davin started to play along. "Not really, you a veterinarian?"

"Hah! I wish!" Yon slugged back half of his drink in one chug, which probably explained how he got this inebriated to begin with. "I only work on people. That Walker Ferret was just an anecdote that _someone_ didn't enjoy." He referred that _someone_ in the direction of the now disinterested tech throwing darts. "Why, you got any good stories?"

"You really want to hear what I do all day? I don't think so." Davin took another sip. "I'm sure your day is much more colorful."

"Colorful, yeah. Let me tell you about my day." As Yon spoke, the bartender went to his comm unit on the wall at the far end of the bar and keyed in a number. "Today I was going through the censored documents for the whole shindig going down, you know, storing them in the central location and all, when my commanding officer pitched a fit about my size increments!"

Davin looked around again, not really understanding what the hell this guy was talking about, but not wanting himself to stand out. Everything seemed normal, though the bar tender occasionally peered over at the drunk, which he figured was pretty normal. If he were the bar tender, he would keep an eye on the loud drunk too.

"Like they were not being stored properly." Yon shook his head in disgust and disapproval. "You know, I could have had his job. At least _then_ I would know what I'm doing. Do you know that I've been here since we first landed? Twenty two years I've been running around, pulling strings for this guy, making the schedule for that guy, giving shots to this guy… I tell you, life was much better with the Burrocks. They knew how to treat their people. I wonder if they still have that center in Albion with the picture of the Great Buddha in the corner. Classy place, called 'Hightown'."

Apparently this guy didn't get the memo about their absorption. Well, it wasn't Davin's place to tell him now… "So, if you were here so long, how did you get stuck so low on the totem pole?"

Yon leaned in closer and lowered his voice. "I know too many things."

"What kind of things?"

"I know about the experiments, what happened at the Citadel, why Palen's running the place now…" Yon looked over his shoulder nervously as several police personnel entered and walked briskly in his direction.

"Yon, you have done it this time. Public intoxication and possibly disorderly conduct, not to mention breach of security protocol if you keep it up." The lead policeman spouted this off as he pulled Yon from his stool and hit him over the back of the head to get him to bend over the counter. The guy secured Yon's hands in a nylon sleeve and pushed him out the door without so much as a complaint from the drunken rambler.

Davin thought about his situation and quickly looked at Samme. "Follow us and break me out in twelve hours."

Before Samme could protest, Davin walked up to a table with several shots of alcohol on it, slugged four of them back to back, and walked outside. There he yelled at the officers for taking his friend and punched one of them in the face.

* * *

"First day out and you nearly blow the whole operation." Julian was pissed at Thao for his performance earlier in the day. "You could have waited for the techs to leave before you went in there."

"And stand in the hallway with nothing to do for several hours? That story you told us would not have held up for long."

"Okay, you know what? I really do not feel like arguing right now. But seeing as security is too tight now to operate freely, you had better have gotten some good information out that crap today."

"The total military equipment allocations for the whole planet? How about unit identifications? We got everything we would ever want."

Bree, very tired from the day wanted to get the show on the road. Thao had half the unit present to discuss the day's events and next course of action. There was not much space left in the room considering the people present and the atmosphere between them. "So what do we plan to do with it? I am tired of sitting here listening to both of you go at each other."

Thao rode with her tone and worked it all in. "Well, this whole planet is one giant training camp. All of the warriors from the other clans are approaching solahma, so all the new ones we see were bred or recruited here. Including that _thing_ that took Yale out."

"Okay, so this is a mix between some sociological experiment and a no holds barred scientific community. They can do whatever they want without any khans looking over their shoulders. Why are there ships programmed to fly to the homeworlds?" Bree was still trying to get to the bottom of this soup.

Thao thought deeply about that. "You said they have entry codes?"

"Aff."

"And they had genetic containment compartments. Has anyone ruled them infecting our capitals with anything out yet? Maybe our eugenics program of hall of Khans?"

"Right, like they could just _walk_ into an iron womb facility and infect everyone. Security is too tight." Julian was trying not to sound as cynical as he probably did.

"No, but the mere fact that they are transporting _something_ to our homeworlds in bio-containers bothers me. When did you say the launch time was Bree?"

"Two days. The ships are still being put together as we speak, but the schedule looked attainable."

"I do not know what their military is going to pull in the next few days, but I do know what it consists of. If we get a message out to Kael Pershaw, he cannot send a reply back in time."

"So we make the call?" Julian was simply following logic here, which is what he did naturally.

Thao lowered his head in thought. He did not like speaking for the commanding officer of the unit, but he knows that the eugenics program is too important to the clans to allow any kind of hampering. "Aff. We stop the launch."

He got up and moved to the front of the room so the unit present can see him. "We have two days and I have layouts of their military strengths. Luckily, most of them are still cadets, which is why we were probably able to gun so many down the other night."

"But from what you told me, we do not want to mix it up with them in numbers, right?" Bree heard about Yale and showed that she still had a sore spot about the fact that she wants revenge, but Thao is going to try and avoid direct combat with their forces for tactical reasons.

Shaine spoke up, "We need to look at their roster sheets again, then come up with a plan. Let us split up for a break and the commanders meet up for the actual mission building."

Thao, hesitant to break their momentum, recognized the unit's fatigue. "Aff. Relieve the men we do not need for watch, and you, Bree, and I will meet up in twenty minutes with all the info we think we need."

Shaine got up to inform his men, "Copy that."

"Oh, and Julian," Thao added. "I want you in there too."

"Yes sir," he sighed.

Thao then put his report together and transmitted it to the awaiting relay device in orbit, which would push it to Kael Pershaw. He knew it would take a long time to get to him, but _better sooner than later_ he thought.

* * *

Eight hours later, in the drink tank at the local law enforcement station, Davin finally woke Yon up, who appeared to have a nice hangover.

"Uhh… oh man, what did they do to you?" he asked when he saw Davin's face.

"What does it look like, they beat the crap out of me." Davin wanted information from this guy, but knew he couldn't get it out of him if the cops took him away. So he figured a nice, quiet cell would be an ideal place for a long talk. In the process however, he had to get to that cell, so drunken disorderly conduct seemed like the best idea at the time. What pissed Davin off the most though is the fact that he had to get laid out like yesterday's news feed because no average tech could drop two warriors in a drunken fight and he didn't want to blow his cover. It really sucks to have to lie there and take it…

"So Yon, I'm gonna cut to the chase here. I need information."

Squinting at the very dim light in the cell, Yon rearranged his face into a confused state. "Information?"

"Yeah. You've been around, you know this place. All the official reports keep leaving all the gooey bits out, and I am dying to figure out what is going on. The last few days have been death."

"I screwed up enough in this place, alright? Just leave me be."

Davin just sat there and thought a bit. He saw something weighing heavy on this man's soul, and he was determined to figure out what it was. "How did you lose your position?"

"I got soft, disagreed with upper management."

"I don't understand."

"I'm not a murderer!" Yon yelled, surprised at his own response. The next minute was pretty quiet. Finally, he spoke up.

* * *

Etienne Balzac spent the last two days in Kael Pershaw's care. He was on to his games too. It seems that Kael did not believe in torture in the conventional sense. He just liked to play mind games. Right now he was in Kael's office, enjoying a nice, warm, plastic cup of water, the first he's had in over twelve hours. He has not been allowed to shower or shave, and has sat in a room with a window so he could watch Kael's techs tear his computer apart, study items from his quarters, read through is journals, and just about everything else. He knew exactly what they were finding, though Kael was looking at other things out of his sight. Add that to sleep deprivation, as every time he closed his eyes the lights came on, or the door creaked. Random low frequency tapping from speaker walls induced a nervous tick as it repeated for near 24 straight hours. Etienne had no clue how much Kael found out, but he knew the implications of his punishment were not going to be as simple as death.

Kael, behind his desk in what looked like a comfortable chair, stared at Etienne for several minutes, not blinking once. The silence was building tension that he couldn't stand. Kael just stared at him, studying him. He was only a few feet away, but he did not answer any of Etienne's questions, respond to any of his movements. He felt like a trapped mouse. "What is it? Kael? What am I doing in here?"

Kael just stared at him.

Etienne was growing more paranoid and impatient. "Come on, this is a waste of time. Are you going to pin something on me? What were you looking for?"

Kael finally spoke up, after near ten minutes of silence. "How bad was it?"

"What do you mean? Being in the cell?"

"I mean, your little _society_. Did you accomplish what you set out to do?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Cut the crap Etienne, you know I know about it. I pulled every message off your computer, every page out of your journal, and watched you every moment since you have been in my care. There is nothing you can hide from me."

"You think you're so clever? You have to prove something first—"

Kael stood up with a speed Etienne did not know he was capable of. "You lost it. The whole project is gone from you now. It is doomed to fail because you could not keep your secrets safe. You will die now a worthless scientist, disgraced from losing his position as Scientist-General. Such lack of ambition, such a weak demise. Definitely not a warrior's death, I can tell you that. If you will not speak, then I will have my guards prepare your last meal and the arrangements for the rest of your stay here."

Etienne knew what that meant. It was like death row, he could feel it radiate from Kael's good eye.

Kael contacted Etienne's guard escort and sat down again. He continued staring silently at him, driving him into near panic again. It lasted not but thirty seconds. Etienne was sweating bullets now because he knew he was doomed. He felt like Kael knew all of his secrets already and just wanted the pleasure of him cracking. But what if he got it all wrong? What if he did go down as the loser he was portrayed? Would his dream die as well? It seemed like it was dying anyway, according to the message he read from Palen just before he was caught.

"Alright," was all Etienne said.

Kael did not respond, he just continued staring.

* * *

"It all started with Etienne and Palen shipping people and supplies over here. Within two months they had enough stuff to hold a population, but it kept coming in anyway. Within a year and a half this place was self-sustaining. They had enough top end scientists running it the way they wanted that they solved a lot of the problems the warriors tend to carry around with them." Yon started from the beginning, which suited Davin just fine.

"The whole goal was to build the perfect human being. Average size, but stronger than elementals, quicker than aerospace pilots, better immune system, stronger senses, metabolism, you get the picture. These guys believed that the clans haven't gone far enough with their phenotypes, that all the secrets haven't been unlocked. Only the most fanatical geneticists were shipped here. I would know. I was one of them."

* * *

Kael showed no outward emotion, though the reward for all his efforts were spilling right out onto his desk.

Etienne continued, "Khan Crichell wouldn't allow the work I wanted to perform. I asked him before, but he was so busy leading Leo Showers around on a leash that he simply didn't have time to listen to anything that would soak resources from Operation Revival. So, once planted on Atlantis, we started where the other clans left off. We immediately began breeding altered phenotypes, just a few at a time at first. But there were errors. Defects were rampant and the children didn't survive long after birth."

* * *

Davin looked over his shoulder to make sure the guard wasn't hanging around. Yon continued despite Davin's lack of eye contact.

"I mean, this was ground breaking stuff. The eugenics program just matched parent genes up, choosing which ones we wanted to be dominant and which ones recessive. But this was like knocking all the pieces off the board and setting it up like we wanted it to look. It took us over eight years, but we finally got our results. A batch of young adults capable of almost everything we set out for. We immediately began training them, testing them. Their results were off the charts. Faster, stronger… meaner. But then it all went wrong."

* * *

"They started developing less admirable… traits as they aged. Some went insane, others started physically deteriorating. But the worst, were the infections. Their bodies developed better, thicker skin, denser muscles, bones, and better bone marrow. Their immune system was able to repel almost everything we could throw at it. But… with that was some kind of hole. Their immune systems lacked something we couldn't figure out, and they contracted a whole mess of bacteria. The bacteria was using their metabolisms to mutate and cause new infections we have never seen before. Atlantis was crawling with new types of bacteria, stuff that didn't bother us at all. But for them… it got bad. Those that washed out of training went on to the lower castes, having families in some cases, mingling with the general populous. The ones who had physical degradation or mental illnesses were treated, but the infected ones, we had no clue how to isolate them all. We had to quarantine almost 90 of that generation, which meant closing off three towns and a whole medical center. When the residents refused to cooperate, we had no choice but to eradicate the threat of an epidemic."

* * *

"The troops we mobilized were no older than sixteen, maybe seventeen. They were the next generation of course, and they had their orders to kill everything. Women, children, animals… They all became murderers overnight." The disgust in Yon's voice was getting thick. "We depleted a large portion of our touman then, as it was sick warrior versus inexperienced one. A lot of the infected ones escaped to the northern mountain ranges, the others were rounded up and disposed. It was decided to just let them die off up there than help them. But it wasn't over."

Yon looked up and smiled a smile of despair and disapproval. "You see, the next generation started degrading as well after another year or two, and they knew what fate befell them. After all, they killed their predecessors. They broke down and decided that they didn't want to go without a fight. A second little 'war' broke out, and this time the prisoners were heavily drugged and taken into observation. The entire project was put on hold for several years until they got the problem fixed. And in the meantime, the victims… the sick…"

* * *

"But we got the kinks out. Palen and I kept the Burrock absorption quiet as to not upset the research going on. We figured that no outside distractions would be beneficial to our efforts. And when the Jaguars were killed off, we got a lot of gear from the chaos in their occupation zone.

"The research we were able to pull on the last generation of failures created a whole plethora of results. We reinstated the program and finally made the enhanced phenotype without any defects. These would be the ones to save the clans."

"And how are they supposed to save us? Save us from what?" Kael was tired of the long narrative.

"With these guys in our warrior ranks, we would be unstoppable. One of our enhanced phenotypes equals five of your genetic trueborn. Think of what an army of them could accomplish."

"But we do not have these enhanced phenotypes running around. Did you plan on knocking on the Khan's door and introducing a few of them to her or something?"

"We were hoping for a diplomatic introduction, yes. After we were successful, all was to be revealed."

Something did not sit right with Kael Pershaw. He just sat there nonetheless, hiding his thoughts completely. But he knows this information is censored. "Well, this has been informative. I will cross-reference this with the material we found in your possession."

With that the guards took Etienne back to his cell, and ignored his screaming protest.

* * *

Davin was pretty amused at all this. It was like one of the fictional stories he read growing up in his village.

"The Goliath Scorpion thing really screwed us up though. Everyone's so busy now trying to get the goop back to the homeworlds."

"I don't get it. The Scorpions are not going to orbitally bomb you or anything."

"Don't you see? The clans would never allow such change to their breeding program. This is why they stopped at the gene matching. The ships ready to launch have the codes to enter the airspace of the head eugenics facilities for each of the five clans here. It was Palen's call, but we are going to launch them before the Scorpions get here, so by the time we are taken over, the new phenotype will already be in production throughout the Kerensky cluster."

"You guys are going to infect our iron wombs with these abominations!" Davin felt like he was hit with a proverbial brick.

"Abominations? This is next step for us. We have been stagnant for too long. Our weapons development ground to a halt two hundred years ago, our phenotype program stopped after two! We are working on a protomech phenotype right now. Who else is doing that?"

"How can you justify this?"

Yon just looked down in shame. "Realistically, I just keep thinking about all the ones that died, and I do not want their lives to have ended for nothing. Some good has to come out of this."

"And you are the only one here to feel this way?"

"No. That is how I lost my position. Almost all the scientists assigned with me to monitor the last 10 and dissect them for the answers spoke up. Most were reassigned or… silenced. Palen is more fanatical then I could have ever imagined. Those of us who want to speak up will answer to him, and we all know where that leads."

"Coward." Davin shook his head in disgust. He knows Yon is not a warrior, and it was the warrior's charge to protect the innocent, but where is the line drawn? "Everyone here is guilty for letting this pass."

"I know. But like I said, some good has to come out of it."

"Some good _can_ come out of it. Tell me where the head research facility is."

"Right, what makes you so great?"

Davin almost gave in and told him, but in the end, he realized the answer. It was his will to act that set him apart, not his caste or clan affiliation. "I refuse to allow this. I will die if I need to, but you of all people understand how I feel. Call me naïve, but death is a small price to pay when standing up for the unspoken."

With that, Yon looked up and smiled.

* * *

Samme counted twelve hours on his watch. He waited forever and a day it felt like, but now was the time. He patiently waited outside the rear of the police station for a security forces officer to leave. The first one who did was choked out and woke up hours later naked in a dumpster.

Inside the building in a humorously tight-fitting stolen uniform, Samme limped his way through the halls posing as an officer. He knew this was not going to fly smoothly, but if it went south, at least he'd go down fighting.

After avoiding eye contact with everyone in the hallway, which was only like two people, but seemed like a hundred, he found himself standing at the doorway to the armory. _Jailbreak, jailbreak… I am going to need something bigger than the guns the officers will be having…_ He searched all his pockets, several he struggled with to get his hand out due to the tightness, until he found the security access card. The thing opened the armory and he wandered around for a minute looking for something tasteful. He realized afterward that security forces rarely get any good equipment, and if they do it is always a hand-me-down from the second line warrior ranks.

But after a minute of looking, Samme stopped dead in his tracks as a boyish smile crept across his face. In the distance, inside a large storage cage were two dusty elemental power armor suits.

* * *

The two officers on duty for the response section of the station checked in on time and sat down for their first meal of the day. That is when someone knocked on the door to their section.

"Come in!" yelled the first officer, who wondered why someone would be knocking on a door they all knew was unlocked.

Again, the knocking. The second officer got up with a sigh to find out who was annoying them and peered through the peephole to avoid having to be surprised at who it was on the other side. That is when the first officer spilled his coffee in his lap when he saw an elemental claw rip through the door and grab his partner's face. The officer's body was pulled through the door, taking it all with him as an elemental power armor suit ducked through the torn open doorway.

Immediately the officer keyed his radio to call for backup when the elemental kicked the guy's desk across the room, pinning him between it and the wall. Two more officers appeared behind it in the doorway with shotguns and froze when they realized what they were going to go up against. They dropped the guns and ducked as the elemental's machine gun ripped through the wall behind them. They ran from the scene faster than they arrived.

* * *

Davin was finished hearing about this place from Yon. He regretted even coming here in the first place, but at least the information on the location of the lead genetics facility was weaned out of him. This was one hell of a night.

After sitting there for another twenty minutes he heard the repeating fire of a heavy machine gun, several screams from within the complex, and saw an elemental rip through the wall next to the cell. The claw made short work of the cell door and Davin, through his tired state finally realized what was going on.

"Samme?"

The elemental suit looked a little different than Davin was used to. It was a machine gun variant for one, and it lacked the shoulder missile launchers that added to their unique shape. The external speaker still worked though. "Yes?"

"Wow. I did not expect you to find such a big toy…"

The tired amazement was cut short however as the elemental turned to fire on another several guards behind it.

"I see you're busy. Umm, do you mind if I like… escape that way?" Davin asked pointing to the peaceful, and still intact door on the opposite end of the cellblock.

"Yes, I mind. The car is over here." And with that, Samme picked Davin up and carried him out of there like a football player.

* * *

Leerais Ben-Shimon waited patiently in his _Lola III_ as he hit the 24-hour barrier. He alerted his fighter squadrons to be on combat recall and decided to get some sleep in the next six hours. He wanted his crew to be fully rested by the time they broke that asteroid field and approached the target of their journey.

* * *

Forbers sweat his last three bottles of water out finishing his little agenda. He gave his package to the leader of the flight crews of the gene delivery vessels after waiting several long, suspenseful hours. All he wanted now was to crawl into a hole and die, but he had to play it cool until the ships launched.

The flight commander, an old friend of Forbers' shook his hand and took the new orders with a smile. A giant weight was going to be forever lifted from their chests, and they were relieved to rectify their pasts, even if it is possibly too little too late. They met outside his station's courtyard. The night was cloudy, but it stopped raining for the first time in several days. A nice breeze swept through, and for the first time in a while, the weather seemed to feel like the general mood.

His friend took the orders and walked to the edge of the courtyard, where he was met with Commander Lathan. Lathan was seldom seen in these parts, mainly because they had little to do with the military projects he is charged with overseeing. But tonight seemed different, and everyone present knew why. Forbers strained to hear what was being said, but his friend finished speaking, stepped back, saluted, and started to walk off. That is when Lathan pulled a pistol from his holster and shot him in the back of the head.

Forbers, screaming, ran up to his fallen friend, the last of only a few he made here and knelt next to his body. Lathan just stood over him, the expression on his face unreadable.

"What was that for!" Forbers screamed.

"You must really calm down. Come, let us have a talk."

"I would rather die at this point—"

"That is very much a possibility if you do not stand away from that body. Now." Lathan's presence commanded obedience.

Forbers reluctantly stood up. Maybe he did not know the extent of what he did. Out of guilt for the death they all caused, he knew that the new phenotype was not fully rid of the problems that plagued the previous generations, despite Palen's blind outlook. He could not, in good conscience, infect the homeworld clans' lines with doomed warriors, only to repeat the massacres carried out here. He re-wrote the mission orders from infiltration and gene-line manipulation to the crews landing, approaching the authorities, and providing the information and gene samples to the proper channels so the clans' current scientist castes can finally finish what was started. No more underhanded tactics, no more dishonorable actions.

Apparently Lathan had a problem with this. "Do you honestly think the clans will incorporate these into their bloodlines voluntarily? You know as well as I do that this will only happen through force. We invade the Inner Sphere to liberate it, and we invade our homes to strengthen them. Ignorance is overcome by force. This is all a cycle."

"I am a scientist, not a butcher. You saw what happened to all those children you trained and had killed. We cannot allow this to happen abroad—"

"Everything is fixed now. We will have our victory." Lathan interrupted smoothly, proving he was in complete control now. "I know you remember how it was originally, how Nicholas designed us as a society. The warriors were on top, mainly to keep the rest of you in line. Scientists can be weak, in body, and in spirit."

"If you are going to kill me, just do it. I have no more patience for your lectures."

Lathan sighed, "Well, if that is what you wish." He raised his gun and shot Forbers in the chest twice, sending the scientist back several feet before hitting the ground and bleeding to death. Lathan kneeled beside him while he breathed the rest of his life away. "Any other day I would applaud a man dying for his convictions. Consider yourself lucky for that much."

With that, he picked up the orders from the flight commander and instructed his men to clean up the area. Clouds were moving in quickly to fill this world with rain again as things were moving into the endgame. All the pieces were finally into place.


	4. Chapter 3: Day of Reckoning

**Chapter Three: Day of Reckoning**

The magnification goggles took no time at all to focus in on the two guards posted at the door to the energy routing station. The rain lifted for what was suspected to be only ten minutes or so, leaving the guards the opportunity to lower their rain gear and shiver in comfort.

Shaine approached Thao from behind, low crawling to his position ahead of the others. "Captain?"

Thao spoke without so much as moving his jaw. He was intent on focusing on the guards. "Yes, Shaine?"

"Well, Berks back there finally caught one of those walker ferrets on his rear patrol. He uhh… wanted to load it up into the vehicle so he could prepare it later."

Thao couldn't help but turn to look Shaine in the face so he could see the expression imbedded in his. "You want that dead animal riding around in our vehicle? What is wrong with him?"

"Well, Berks has this tradition of eating something from every planet he visits. I do not know where he got it from, but this was his only request this mission."

Thao just shook his head in astonishment and returned his view to the two guards, who were now conversing amongst themselves. Two other guards approached from the front, also talking amongst themselves. "Tell him if we wants to eat that thing so badly, he eats it raw, right now. That thing is _not_ riding around with us tonight."

"Understood sir."

Shaine left while Thao watched the two guards ask for identification from the new guys that just walked up. The two new guards checked their pockets long enough for the two posted guards to continue their conversation, then they seamlessly kicked the one of the legs out from each posted guard, spun them around, and snapped their necks. It was synchronized, and quite beautifully executed.

"Go." Thao's men surged forward toward the two assailants and recent corpses in front of the building. The sky started to leak as they approached, weapons up. The two new guards already took their victims' ID cards and radios and resumed post while two of Thao's troops removed the bodies from the scene, hiding them nearby. "Do as we planned, and contact me before anything arises out here. I will keep you posted as needed."

"Aff, commander. We have your back," one of the new guards responded. Thao had these two men in his unit "relieve" the existing guards of their duty so his team could get into the complex and destroy it. This was the power routing station for this area of the city. If it goes, near 85 of the launch sites go to reserve power, forcing the area security details to investigate, creating openings for his men to get into the launch control facility and sabotage the whole operation. It was not a pretty plan, but this was not a pretty planet, which rewarded his efforts by resuming its downpour as he entered.

Thao's men moved in quickly and secured the front room. Several technicians and another security guard were in there monitoring the sector's energy conditions. There was no resistance. His men had the place locked down from the inside in moments and were already looking over the information on the screens.

Thao's radio crackled, "_Sir, we have approaching techs out here, two of them."_

"We are not finished yet. Take care of them."

"_What if they do not leave? Think they will blow our op?"_

Thao thought good and hard about this. He always tried to minimize casualties whenever possible. But sometimes circumstances do not permit, and those times are the ones he constantly tried to wipe from his memory. "Do what you have to do. I want the problem solved."

"_Copy that sir."_

With that he continued to bind the station personnel and supervise the injection of the memory wiping sedative that will render these people harmless to his team in the future. He had a limited supply however, and this was all of it. Any more prisoners will have to be dealt with in another way.

"Sir!" It was Bree from the monitor room, "I have good news and bad news." Thao just looked at her with a face that told her to continue. "This will not work like you wanted. The launch sites are strung up like a series circuit due to the limited power plants in the city. If we cut the power here, they _will_ go to back-up power, but normal power can be rerouted through another…" she looked at the screen again to verify, "two stations. We are looking at a window of twenty minutes after here before the mission is scrapped."

"What about the launch procedure?"

"Well, according to this, the sequence is released from launch control and fed through the sites in the same order as the power. We stop the signal before it hits the first site, the rest do not launch. But they can reboot the servers remotely, which will allow them to remote activate the launch signal individually for each station from launch control. It will buy us more time, but it is thin."

He was thinking to himself: _what would I do if I were trying to get this launch off?_ He figured he would have a crack security agent at each complex to hamper any covert ops, but this "Lathan" did not have those at his disposal apparently. He would probably prefer the "send as many troops over to destroy all opposition" route, which was an effective one. Could they pull this off?

"Can you jam the signal to reboot?"

"Neg, though we may be able to jam the launch signal; it is on a different frequency."

They waited in silence for him to make the call.

"Do it. We cut the power here and get in the transport to make our way to the primary launch site. You had better have that sequence down right."

"No worries here Star Captain," she replied with confidence. They cut the power to the launch sites and headed out. The two techs outside were killed silently and stuffed away by the time Thao and his team exited. They were out of there without incident, though the mission had changed dramatically in the last few minutes. _It would be a miracle to pull this off right,_ Thao thought as he ran back to the transport.

* * *

Twenty meters above the ground, Julian shimmied down a hard comm line in a downpour to make his way to the command complex Scientist-General Palen Miescher worked from. He has his office and quarters there, at least according to the historical info he worked up and the security detail supplied to the internal residential portion in Thao's report. Several foot patrols made their way under him as he silently worked his way to the complex, completely decked out in black combat dress, complete with mag-grips, a mask, and his favorite knife. The night vision inserts were even flat coated as to not have the lenses give off a reflection.

The rain continued as he jumped from the cable and activated the electromagnetic coils in his grips, allowing him to attach to the surface of the complex wall like a spider. Crawling his way through the small route that avoided all lighting, he made his way to the air conditioning outtake and gained entry.

It took no more than twenty minutes to locate Palen's quarters, though they were unoccupied. Julian marked the vent way with florescent marker, so that he could navigate his way back there easily with the night vision opticals he had if he needed to later. Another thirty minutes were spent locating Palen elsewhere in the complex, which fortunately, was on the same level. Several internal cross grids and even a few security sensor arrays within the venting slowed him down considerably, but all was a night's work and the builders did not plan on anything smarter than rodents to be wandering through their duct system.

Palen was in his private briefing room on a communiqué with commander Lathan. He was discussing the launch readiness procedure and its progress when Lathan had to be excused for a few moments to confer with a tech about something. Lathan was in his command center, the same one Thao walked through before. When Lathan returned, his news made Palen sweat a single bead down the side of his face. In all fairness, he was well composed for a man who's life goal for the past twenty years or so was on the line.

"What was that?" Palen inquired.

"That was a Goliath Scorpion Lola III class warship entering our orbit. They showed up a day earlier than planned."

Palen tried to keep his cool. "Okay, what does this do to our launch schedule? Are the crews all ready?"

"The crews are ready and will be strapped in soon. I have this situation under control Palen. Leave the military matters to the warrior you put in charge of them."

"Very well. I am going to my review station to monitor everything. I leave this in your hands for now. I have something else I have to deal with anyway." With that Palen turned the communication off and sulked for several minutes, running himself through several breathing exercises in what he thought was complete privacy.

Julian watched through his vent cover silently, studying the mental and psychological condition of his adversary. Palen was not about to give his dream over to someone else, and he knew it. It was a matter of time until he resurfaced, and Julian was here to make sure that it goes the way Thao needs it to.

Palen left for his review station, which was manned with several techs and another slew of monitors, holo-displays, comm stations, and a command chair. Julian could not find a good vantage point from within the duct system, and had an even harder time finding a point where he could intervene effectively if need be. He would have to find another way to keep this situation within his control. It was time to go shopping…

* * *

Star Admiral Leerais Ben-Shimon was more than ready to get this show under way. He had a crew with nine days of boredom to coordinate, and he was actually excited to do it. Of course, he would not show the slightest emotion in this encounter, or that was always his goal as a clan commander, but every great while he slips up. Either way, this planet has some answering to do, and he was in the mood for questioning.

His bridge techs brought up the comm signal to the suspected planetary capital, which would broadcast his transmission to the entire region until the appropriate commander replied. His batchall was pretty straight forward, though he had no intention of invading yet, so it was modified. "This is Star Admiral Leerais Ben-Shimon from the Goliath Scorpion warship Auriga in geosynchronous orbit above your planet. What forces occupy this place?"

A return transmission from commander Lathan popped up, giving Leerais the response he did not want to hear. _"This is the commanding officer of the ground forces on this planet. You are invading our territory and we will defend if necessary. What intentions do you bring to the planet Atlantis?"_

Leerais was annoyed that this man appeared to be clan (with his hairstyle and uniform make-up), but did not respond with full name and rank, affiliation, or force numbers. _There is always something…_ "I have orders to identify the forces that destroyed the cartographer vessel Red Aculeus, and I will use what force is needed to accomplish that. Who is this and who do you report to?"

Lathan answered with a straight, emotionless face. _"If you are going to attack, you have failed to indicate how many forces will be participating--"_

As he spoke, the lead sensor tech flagged Leerais down, trying to tell him something. Leerais instinctually muted his mic and asked the tech was he needed since it did look very important due to the expression on his face. "What is it?"

"Sir, we have a _Carrier_ coming up on our starboard side, 900 kilometers out."

Another tech spoke up, "Another two off our port! We may have another inbound from the planet."

The main screen in the bridge switched to the magnified view of the first _Carrier_ on their right side while a personal holo-display showed Lathan waiting patiently to have Leerais's attention since he so rudely ignored his response. The large screen showed the payload doors to the dropship open on both sides, but the ship was so far away that they could still not make out much detail due to the magnification limitations on their cameras.

The radar tech suddenly notified him of the three aerospace attack stars that launched from the _Carriers_ directly at the Auriga. It was game time.

"All fighter units! All fighter units! We have incoming! Launch immediately and get my point defensive up and running. Weapons!"

The weapons officer spoke up, "Sir!"

"Arm the autocannons and laser defensive and get our countermeasures locked and loaded!"

"Aye, sir!"

It took almost a minute for the craft to reach firing range, enough time for his doors to open to let his defenders out. The _Lola III_ carries one star of heavy fighters, which will certainly be outnumbered by the three coming in at them, but the warship sports Barracuda and White Shark Missile systems, which will be crucial in taking out the three incoming _Carrier_ attach dropships, leaving the fighter duty pretty clear and narrow. In moments pandemonium ensued as dozens of fighters engaged head on and then maneuvered for a dogfight right around the ship. Sadly enough, the planetary forces outnumbered the Scorpions, leaving many to make strafing runs on the ship's blind spots.

The reports came in, _"Sir, this is Star Captain Jenkins, these guys are merging in and out of formations faster than we can track them!"_

"Take your unit out of static flight patterns and have them engage in zones instead of man to man, this should help out our weak point defensive. I want our red areas secured enough for our guns to do damage. Get them to minimal distance."

"Aye, sir."

"Sir! This is cargo bay three. We've sustained damage to our loading doors, so our refits will not make it back out soon. I've got a team working on it now, but I don't have an estimated time for you."

Leerais figured out what was going on and had to act quickly. That bay door was on his belly and his sensors showed the enemy units scattering, and then grouping up in strafing formations just long enough to do damage from behind, then scattering again and keeping his fighters busy. Clever surats…

"Turn this rig over, I want a full 120 degree rotation to our port side! We need to keep those guys away from our cargo areas and get them into our line of fire!"

The ship started rotating quickly as more damage reports came in. The fighters were effectively staying out of firing arcs and within minimum range to the ship to make his own fighters hesitate at taking shots at them without damaging their own vessel. This was going to be very irritating very soon.

* * *

Mechwarrior Davin casually made his way into the genetic repository central building with his stolen uniform and the security codes Yon gave him. Samme was in the vehicle working to raise Bree on the comm again. They had an erratic schedule set to keep checking, though no success was made yet.

Once inside, he observed the main arena. Scientists were not too abundant right now, being the nighttime off hours. The whole idea was to burn the place to the ground before the materials could be all taken for loading onto the launch craft. To do that, he had to find the supply hold for all the genetic material, which was something much easier done with no one around.

He found the fire and biohazard alarms located conveniently on the walls and pulled one. The warriors assigned to security detail rounded up the scientists and helped them evacuate. After half the people were out, Davin tripped the contaminant alarm, which locked the building down.

Now alone, he was free to find his way to the genetic storage area, which he did with relative ease, though he was not prepared for the sight of it. The room was more like a huge cavern, with a high roof and thousands of genetic canister housings. The place was huge, and the lighting was darkened with the exception of the eerie glow from behind the storage walls. The only problem with this place was that all of the canister housings were empty. Every one of them. He was too late, and the weight of failure sank onto his shoulders.

He moved through the cavernous room to the other end, working his way toward the other exit. It so turns out that offices awaited him on the other end, and what looked like a reception desk.

He was about to radio Samme and tell him the thing was off when he decided to poke around on the computer interface the clerk so carelessly left unlocked when hurried out of the room. The surveillance cameras had a central signal sent to it, so he knew that security would later see him wandering down the halls and looking at this very computer. That didn't bother him. What did was the sight of two cameras peering down several hallways full of containment cells, full of detainees. The camera was labeled "Specimen Holding".

Suddenly the red flashing lights on the ceiling signifying the recovery team's attempted entry drew his attention away from the file he was trying to access. He decided to confirm what he was feeling before radioing Samme and telling him that he was going to be a while. He got up and made his way to the containment cells with the security bypass kit he hoped he wouldn't need. But even he knew that forcefully unlocking every cell in a prison facility would need more than just a password…

* * *

Moving along the roads to the primary launch facility, Thao Prentice relieved his spotting duties to the commander of the third vehicle in his convoy so he can rest his eyes. He was still pissed about plan "A" not working out, and was skeptical about "B" turning out any better. Failure here meant getting off planet was going to be that much harder, and the ships aimed at his clan's homeworld would travel uncontested.

"Sir?" Berks, one of the elementals under Shaine's command in the third vehicle doing the spotting, chimed in over the comm. "I think I have something here."

Thao looked in the direction of Berks' spotting arc and saw several lights appear over the horizon. "Give me confirmation."

"Several omnimechs with vehicle support. I got a Hellbringer, Mad Dog, Mist Lynx, Epona, Ares, and an Enyo Strike Tank. They are all closing at top speed, sir."

"ETA?"

"At this rate…a minute and a half until maximum firing range."

Thao just sighed. He knew this was the hiccup that would throw everything into his 'worst case scenario'. "Punch it, top speed. I want the vehicles in a right wedge formation. Keep your eyes on the targets and get the big guns out. I want us over that ridge by the time they open fire."

The vehicles sped up through the rain and fell into formation. The waiting only built up suspense in all of the troops, since they all knew exactly how this was going to go down: messy.

The vehicles accelerated while people went through their gear; Berks kept on watching the incoming units. His queue was right on target, _"Here we go!"_

Right then a large laser from the _Mad Dog_ ripped the tailgate off of Shaine's vehicle and sent it several meters forward on its front two wheels before resuming its original position. "Oh crap!" was his response.

"Scatter! Scatter! Erratic movements!" Thao had his driver veer left to make room for the other two vehicles to swerve around. "Up there! Bree, we are going left along the riverbed, you go right into the tree line and make your way to the complex. Shaine, your vehicle will follow her to her left, keep it unpredictable."

Several large laser impacts sent dirt flying into Thao's vehicle, the impact alone sending minor shock waves against the ride. _"Copy that!"_

The _Epona_ was closing in around the left side after Thao while the _Mad Dog_ veered right to gain a line of site advantage over Shaine's vehicle. It was then that Thao saw the _Ares_ fire an LRM volley at their line. The missiles first shot upward to clear any forward obstacles, and then for a split second floated… All fifteen of them ignited at once and made a straight line for Bree's vehicle, which was about twenty meters from the tree line. Her cover was too far away—"Bree! Incoming! Brace yourself!"

The screaming wall of fire zeroed in at a fanatical pace and provided an impact worthy of respect from any tank commander. Bree's world erupted into fire and chaos instantly, with her driver veering left at the last possible moment to avoid the lead missile. The lead one did miss, but hit the ground next to her vehicle, forcing its concussive blast through the bottom and sending it rolling in the air for several meters. All was silent in Thao's world as the vehicle was effortlessly thrown from the ground, and he gripped the side of his door in anticipation for the moment he knew would follow.

The thing landed on its wheels surprisingly, and without missing a beat, resumed at top acceleration. "Bree! Sitrep!"

"I can NOT believe that just happened! My spotter hit his head and is unconscious, but the rest of us are fine, if a little jarred. Vehicle is at 70, which is phenomenal."

Relieved, he tried to speak up to hide it, but failed in doing so. "Alright, keep it going. I will take the attention away from you."

Her vehicle hit the tree line as the _Mad Dog_ opened up with a laser barrage and destroyed the first several trees behind her, knocking two down and creating a barrier for the tanks to pursue through.

Thao lit up three flairs and stuck them in random holes and crevices on the top of his vehicle, creating an easy target to home in on. It glowed fairly well as it sped down the riverside, straightening its path out. The river itself was relatively low, but it would slow his vehicle down more than the pursuing units, so he ordered it to stay on dry land for now.

The _Hellbringer_ followed suit and started pummeling at the vehicle with its medium lasers, which were carving out a nice ditch behind its target. One hit the rear wheel well and just barely missed taking the wheel out, while another tore off the rear lights. Thao near frantically searched for an area to pull into and disappear when he heard the PPCs charge in the 'mech behind him. He ordered the vehicle right, into the tree line, which immediately sent a dozen trees past them as the driver swerved non-stop to avoid a certain death at this speed. The PPC bolt landed behind them, not close enough for anyone to wet themselves.

Bree's vehicle's roof was torn off with a graze from the _Mad Dog's_ large laser. Everyone ducked just in time, but the heat melted the tops of the sides, so a trail of steam was only making the vehicle more visible as the rain hit it to cool it off. Then she heard Shaine over his comm, "_To hell with this…"_ Looking over, she witnessed the barrel of a man-pack PPC stick out of the rear of Berks' vehicle and aim at the omnimech behind them. _"See? I told you we might need this thing."_ Shaine took careful aim with his target assisted view piece in his helmet.

The driver kept going with the vehicle, slowly increasing the erratic movements to keep it out of the _Mad Dog's _barrage. The _Mad Dog_ straightened itself out just enough to finally get that LRM lock it was trying to obtain, which prompted Shaine to let loose.

As the missiles were fired, a PPC bolt punched right into the center housing where the legs and torso connect, throwing the center of the 'mech backward and nearly off balance. Berks half expected Shaine to show a smile or something, but he was carefully taking aim for a follow up shot. His mentality was: _if these LRMs hit, I won't get another chance._

The second shot hit the _Mad Dog_ in the right arm shoulder actuator, throwing the whole machine to the right and finishing what he started with the center hit. The heavy went down and sent a resounding ground tremor through the forest around it. It would only take several seconds for it to get back up, which was all that was left for Shaine and his men.

"Brakes, now!"

His vehicle swerved sideways to a near rolling stop as the LRMs flew over it and into the ground ahead. The explosions were deafening, and it left the ground a chewed up collection of craters that would not allow the vehicle to pass without trouble. So he ordered it around while keeping a sharp eye on the downed omni. The tanks found their way ahead of it and to the top of Shaine's priority list, but his PPC was too hot to carry now, since he did not give it time to cool off between shots. No one else had anything capable of doing damage to the armor, so it was full steam ahead, once again.

Thao was lucky enough to find a tributary to the river to his right that the _Hellbringer _and _Mist Lynx_ were traveling along. His driver used the small clearing channel to get the vehicle's speed back up and put some distance between him and his pursuers. The forest was too thick here for a close pursuit, so it gave him a little time to pull the same trick he did in Silver City several days ago. He found a nitch within the first few hills and dismounted the vehicle. They took all the gear they could grab and headed for some shadowed parts of the hill leading to a flat top conducive for escape after setting up the last of their explosives on a short timer.

The _Mist Lynx_ was right on time churning through the area after the vehicle, which it found shortly before the explosives lit that section of forest up. The brief flash illuminated Thao's position, which he hugged as tight as he could, feeling wet mold on his face and nearly sliding several feet due to the rain. The _Epona_ followed it and started a search pattern, which was luckily far ahead of Thao and his team by now. After the _Hellbringer_ passed, they headed up the hill in silence and reached the top without incident.

The top however, would prove to be more of an obstacle than originally thought. Thao learned of that when he reached for a hand hold on the flat landing and found the boot of an armor commander instead, waiting for him with a laser rifle and radio.

* * *

The scene outside was as chaotic as it gets this late in a space battle. The _Carriers _closed their distance and opened fire on the warship before receiving the opening volley of the White Shark missile launchers. That coupled with the Naval AC 10s took one of the _Carriers _out of the fight in record time, though the other two split up to make Leerais's job that much harder. Upon closer inspection, the _Carriers_ only launched 28 fighters, seven of which have already been shot down. The remaining ships was either MIA or not operational enough to launch. Either way, it was a fact Leerais stored in the back of his head for later.

The second _Carrier_ launched several Streak SRM volleys at the Scorpion fighter units and opened its AC20s at the Auriga, forcing it into evasive maneuvers.

"Take those guns out of commission!"

The Auriga responded with a slight rotation and a lethal Barracuda missile attack coupled with its AC10s. The _Carrier_ took considerable damage at this range and suffered a direct missile impact at one of its AC20 sites, rendering it useless. It was a small and temporary victory, but that was one less weapon to worry about.

The up close commotion near the Goliath Scorpion destroyer provided a clearing large enough for a quarterback sneak for the Falcon dropship Iron Raptor to exploit. The 32nd Special Operations Unit's support ship was pretty unique for clan standards. It was one of the original modified _Overlord-Cs_, done up before the standardized production on Strana Mechty after Operation Klondike. Unlike the general _Overlord-C_ population, this one still had space for ten omnifighters and a star of armor, usually acting for ground transport for the Nighthawks. This complemented the five stars worth of 'mech bays and the Strider that was part of the support trinary. Well over a year was spent souping it up to Kael Pershaw's specs, but it was done, and it was beautiful. The aerial combat made a great backdrop for them to attempt an atmospheric drop, not that it had any choice.

Star Commander Brevan overlooked the sensor grids to get a better picture of what they were missing. The dropship commander told him not to worry, since they were burning at full speed to get across the void without incident. Their transponder was pinged twice, which was the planetary aerospace fighters trying to identify the Raptor, but they were quickly under attack from the Goliath Scorpion task force, rendering the Falcons the opportunity to continue through.

"Fifteen minutes until planet side," the dropship commander informed Brevan. He had his crew ready to go, with the rest of the elemental and armor elements. They had not packed the 'mechs for Thao's crew on the ground, so it left a lot of cargo room for support elements. Not enough time was given to convert the 'mech pylons into suitable vehicle ones, so the empty areas were filled with 'mech repair supplies and ammunition, heftily preparing the support unit for a lengthy battle. The drop point was the spaceport the planetary militia was launching its forces from. Once secured, they were to link up with Thao Prentice as soon as possible and provide cover for their extraction. The problem was, the men on the ground didn't know they were coming since their signal was lost in the over burdened combat communications network running in the battle ahead. It was hard keeping yourself below the radar sometimes.

Brevan ran the checks again and had his second in command make sure the mechwarriors were geared and ready to go. The techs had the ammo supply ready to go for reloads and field kits prepped for repairs. Brevan reformed his star with the other two in the support binary, making a suitable trinary for deployment along with twenty elementals. _This is going to be fun,_ he thought as the ten omnifighters launched to provide escort to the ground. They stayed in tight and reported in right as the gravitation pull of the planet began to rock the great ship.

* * *

Thao Prentice climbed up onto the ledge and raised his hands into the air in a gesture of surrender. A disdained look on his face told his captor that he was not happy about the situation, but who would be?

"So you're the people sent here to keep us quiet, quiaff?" The armor commander sneered at his comment, happy that he caught something worthy of his time. Thao just ran the scenarios through his head as this new inquiry sparked some controversy.

"Sent to keep you quiet? What are you talking about?"

"Don't play that game with me, we know you dropped in and are trying to sabotage the launch."

Thao's heart missed a beat—_Do they know about us? No one knows about us, not even our own clan!_ "Hey, I am just a rebel following the orders of my local commander. I have been here all along."

"Not with an accent like that. You don't use contractions, clan warrior." The commander's men moved in a half circle around Thao, guns raised. Thao tried to look scared, but it was so hard with Brander, one of his troops from his vehicle behind their leader with his right arm reared back to rip his head off…

Brander punched the commander in the back of the head so hard that one of his eyes popped out on impact. He didn't even have time to scream before he lost consciousness. The other men around instantly looked over to feel the driver of Thao's former vehicle stab one of them through the heart from behind and use that soldier's gun to shoot two more of them in a smooth, seamless movement.

The last guy was going to fire, but didn't because his commander was held up in front of Brander the like a body shield. That moment of hesitation allowed a soldier's worst enemy to stare him in the face: fear. Thao moved in slowly, telling him that he did not have to die tonight. The man dropped his gun and ran as quickly as he could, but Thao's driver tackled him by the ankles, and they ended up knocking him out all the same.

This gave them three very valuable things: a tank, a radio, and weapons. Thao tuned the headset in to hear the unit commander's orders filter to the search units. They were still looking for the bodies of Thao's men, and the other team temporarily lost Bree and her crew, and then picked them up over half a kilometer away. They were in hot pursuit.

Then he heard something that made his mind work again: commander Lathan's security escort reported their convoy was en route to the secondary command center near depot five. Thao quickly checked the Tac-Map in the tank and learned that it was about fifteen kilometers northwest of their location. Since he lost his radio to contact Bree with, and these did not have his signal encryption codes programmed in there, he made the call to tackle Lathan at his destination. If he can't protect her at the launch site, he could try and protect her by other means, even if that meant a face-to-face excursion. _Maybe this guy has a shred of honor left, _he hoped as a plan took form in his head.

* * *

Samme was sitting in his vehicle checking the radio frequencies for his team, and for some reason avoiding all suspicion by the responding HAZMAT and military personnel forming at the entrance to the complex Davin sealed up. He was just in the parking lot, which was good enough cover he guessed, since no one gave him any trouble.

All of a sudden, just when his battery light flickered on, _"Keep to the right, I do not want you hitting those rocks over there. Shaine, I am going right through that break in the tree line, keep that stravag's attention while I cross the open."_

Samme puckered right up as he heard Star Commander Bree's voice chime in mid-conversation on his radio. "Star Commander Bree, this is Samme, where is your location?"

"_Samme? What in Kerensky's name… where are you?"_

"I am in the parking lot of the main--" He looked up and saw a sight that did not sit well with him.

"_Samme? What is it? Are you still there?"_

"Yes ma'am, sorry. I am just watching a _Mad Dog_ respond to a simple fire alarm…"

"_Samme, which direction is it coming from?"_

"South by south-west."

"_Hold tight, we are on our way to you. What is the terrain like there?"_

"I am sitting in a parking lot right now, but know of a place we care store up, if only for a few minutes."

"_Get yourself ready, we are coming in hot…"

* * *

_

Davin finished hacking his way into the detention chambers when he got the call. Samme told him he found friends and they were coming in the rear of the building, fast. He had no time to ask questions, only run like hell across the complex toward the rear supply docks. A rather substation tremor shook the building on his way there, with the incredibly large crashing noise accompanying it. Almost completely winded, he rounded the corner to the docks (after running down a wrong hallway and back) to find Bree, Samme, his point commander Shaine, Berks, and the six other members of his unit dismounting near crushed vehicle transports in front of a gaping hole in the main loading door.

"Bree!"

Star Commander Bree looked up to see Davin and almost looked relieved at the sight of the freeborn. "Davin! We have people behind us. We need to get inside and figure out how to evacuate through a different route."

"Ma'am, there is an underground rail system here for transporting supplies out of the rain. I can show you where it leads." He would have helped the unit out, but they were managing.

"We have to barricade this area off—" Just then a _Centaur_ protomech appeared in the opening and ripped off fire from its laser at the rear vehicle, causing the ignition of the fuel contents. The explosion cut off all conversation as the unit booked it through Davin's doorway while Berks jumped inside of the loading crane operator's chair and swung the heavy loading fork into the protomech so hard that it knocked it right out of the garage altogether.

Bree caught Davin by the shoulders and reminded him who was in charge. "We need to seal this off and regroup."

"I have just the place Star Commander," he replied. And with that, he led them to the small security forces armory, where he opened it up and they pilfered every weapon and grenade available. After that they blew three hallways in a row up with their grenades to slow the protomechs' pursuit while Davin led them to the detention bays.

Once in the detention bays, he finished the security sequence and unlocked all the cells. Men and women filed out of them at once, mostly malnourished and tired. "Who are all these people?" Bree asked.

"These are the last generation of warriors bred here, the last one to have major defects. These particular people didn't develop all the strange diseases like the rest, so they were sent here for testing."

"Testing, like lab rats?"

"Exactly. The scientists here have gone too far and will stop at nothing to get their fanatical goal accomplished."

With that one of the former prisoners approached Davin and introduced himself as Gamma 91. "What kind of name is that?" Davin asked.

"We were all given simple code names so the scientists could identify us per batch and sibko. We did not know the real reason until this of course," he referred to the cells behind him as he spoke. "Who are you?"

Davin had to choose his words carefully, as unit exposure was still unauthorized for this mission. "I am… getting you out of here."

"How?"

Even Bree looked at him with that one, surprised that he was extending himself to liberating native prisoners when he should be concentrating on getting her team out to the primary launch site. Davin looked around, trying to piece fragments of a plan together in his head as quickly as possible, "We need to get this team out of here, and we will fight to do it. There are several armored units trying to get through here, but they cannot fit through those reinforced doors, so it will bottleneck them. Star Commander…"

Bree looked up at him.

"Ma'am, I need us to give our weapons to these guys, we will hold them off for you. The maps to the tunnels are over there," he stated while pointing to a computer terminal.

"Wait a minute, we are under attack? I thought you said you were getting us out of here." Gamma 91 said.

Davin calmed himself and spoke deliberately, "I am not going to lie, I need these people here to escape, and I hope that all of us will be able to follow suit, but much more is at stake here than our lives."

"What are you saying exactly?"

"I don't know exactly what you've all been through down here, but this is your chance to get back at those who did it to you, and stop this from ever happening again. I know as warriors that you still have a concept of honor and necessity." Davin was going on a limb here, but surprisingly meant every word he said.

Gamma 91 thought about what he was told, and responded in kind as the reinforced doors to the chamber compound started knocking when the planetary militia forces tried making their way in there. "If this place is already under attack, then it seems like we have no choice, quiaff?"

Bree, sick of this conversation, intervened, giving Gamma 91 a rifle to shut him up. "Aff. Now we need to go. Nighthawks! Hand over the armory's weapons to these men and follow me. On the double!"

Gamma 91 took the rifle and started rallying men while the knocking outside increased.

* * *

Lathan moved quickly from his transport to his command station. Another three vehicles were found running from his security dispatch and managed to fire a portable PPC from the rear hatch of one of them at his omnimechs. This meant something was up, and he was determined to get a handle on the situation.

Last he heard, they funneled into the main genetics repository and barricaded themselves inside. He had what was left of his aerospace support routed over there with a star of protomechs and thirty infantry, the successful augmented phenotypes. This will be excellent combat experience on their part, and he may be able to rid himself of these bandits after all. But the back of his head told him that these were not bandits… and in that light he had two stars of 'mechs and several points of elementals dispatched to the primary launch station's railway port, just in case his gut was right on this one.

"Sir! The two stars of 'mechs you dispatched are en route to the facility as you ordered. The elementals are waiting for air transport, which will be another ten minutes or so, but will cut their travel time—"

"Thank you. I will take it from here," Lathan had lost all patience today. With the clutter tactics going on in orbit to these well-equipped bandits on the ground, not to mention the security breach he entrusted Palen to take care of, his plate was full as it was. "What is the launch time looking like?"

One of his techs spoke up, putting the numbers on his personal monitor. "Twenty minutes sir. We have it timed slightly after the next dropship launch, so they have adequate cover to slip past the Goliath Scorpion warship in orbit."

"Keep it on schedule."

"Yes, sir."

He tilted his head back slightly to stretch his neck. His posture was still near perfect, and he felt it his responsibility to look the part of a warrior since there were so few original clan warriors left on this planet to represent as it was.

Right when he thought he had his train of thought down, his right monitor lit up with security camera footage of an _Enyo Strike Tank_ crashing through the front security checkpoint, its machine guns blazing at the next barrier, clearing the area of all personnel. It was going full speed, and launched a volley of Streak SRMs at the bay doors ahead of it so it didn't have to break stride through the complex. Then it was out of view.

"Got it!" one of his men shouted, as another security camera view popped up on the main monitors showing the _Enyo_ launching another missile volley at some debris ahead of it. This time Lathan not only heard the explosion through the video feed, but also through the walls of his compound. It wasn't far now, and he had a good idea of its destination.

"Close up the fire doors! Get our inside turrets online and arm the inner security with anti tank missiles, now!"

He watched as the orders were repeated to the various areas of the complex from his command staff. When he asked for an update, it all came back positive. It appears his men were in position in record time, and the whole scene calmed a bit.

"Where is it now?"

"We're looking sir, but the men in the freight corridor lost visual."

"Lost visual? What about the security feeds?"

"The feeds show it gone sir, like it just disapp—" The low rumble of a tank's engine and the sound of tracks on hard floor shut the man up mid-sentence. Everyone in the room looked around for the source, and then realized where it was coming from. Small arms fire erupted from his security detail outside the personnel entryway; one he thought was too small for a tank and cleared to up the defense of the freight corridor. Not but moments later a scratched up _Enyo_ _Strike Tank_ crashed through the personnel entryway to his bunker and skidded sideways to a stop after smashing through several computer consoles and nearly hitting seven men. He cursed the high ceilings that were last minute additions to the design of this place, as he never imagined a tank would roll its way through the hallway system into his command center. This was embarrassing on so many levels…

The loudspeaker of the tank sounded off as several security guards flooded the room and pointed their rifles at the tank. _"The tank hatch will open for me to disembark. I am unarmed and request safe escort to your commander."_

"Who is this?" Lathan commanded from behind his command desk. He stood up, which gave him a rather clear view of the tank since it was in the center of the room now.

The hatch opened and a man slowly emerged with his empty hands in the air wearing some kind of black, anonymous combat uniform. "My name is Thao." Thao Prentice looked around the room as he slowly exited the tank and stopped when his gaze met Lathan's. "I challenge you to a trial of possession for this command center and the assets it controls."

Lathan almost laughed, but held it back. The corner of his mouth did recede into a half smile however, showing his amusement. "And what makes you think I would participate in such a trial, Thao?"

"Because it is the way of the clans, and your duty to provide an example for your troops."

"Hmm… then I counter bid. If I win the trial, your unit will surrender to me and answer all the wonderful questions I have for them."

Thao contemplated his options, but knew that it had to go down quickly, because the barrels of more than ten rifles bore down on his head. "I cannot speak for my men individually, but I will give them the order."

"And they are honorable enough to cooperate in such an instance?"

"They are crusaders, and honor is never lost among them."

Lathan thought about this for a minute, and Thao did look pretty beaten up already with his uniform having several tears in it and dirt streaked across his face. _If these men are who I think they are, then I cannot refuse this opportunity…_

"Very well. We will fight right here, you and I alone."

"Weapons?"

"Whatever we find in our surroundings. Men! Resume your patrols and secure the tank. If you interfere, I will have you executed."

The men shouted back in unison, "Yes, sir!" Then moved out. The two other men in the tank came out without a fight and were handcuffed and brought to the corner of the room to observe the trial.

Lathan jumped down from his command booth and landed in a squat, showing his battle prowess has not waned in the last several years of command duty. Thao just climbed down from the tank and shook his body out, loosening all of his limbs. He could not believe this was going to happen, a gamble he was not authorized to make. But if the launch went bad, he had more to worry about. Besides, if this Lathan learned of the truth, who in the Grand Council would believe him anyway? He was below even the dark caste as far as the clans would be concerned. And that was even IF his men did not commit suicide to keep quiet.

Lathan closed in for his opening move, and Thao cleared his mind and prepared to respond in kind.

* * *

The medium-heavy trinary stationed at the planetary spaceport was put on priority status for the last several hours, nearly doubling their patrol duties and having their technician staff fully manned. The pilots lost count of the number of times they walked past the same refueling depot and performed their checks. They were anxiously awaiting either some invaders, or the order for withdrawal. And right as Mechwarrior Truss was just about to make his fifth smart-ass complaint of the night, their radars spiked.

"We have incoming! A whole star of fighters dropping right in on our heads!" The Star Captain's comment prompted each mechwarrior to look up at the sky and observe the perimeter turrets shooting into the thick overcast clouds. The rain slowed slightly for the occasion, as there was no sign of invasion yet.

Suddenly, ten orange glows appeared deep in the clouds signifying the fighters' entrance, followed by several large laser beams and PPC bolts reigning right down onto the 'mechs. Four units took damage to their upper torso and one received a head hit, seriously disorienting the pilot for several seconds. Then the fighters appeared, two _Scythas, _four _Visigoths_, two _Batus_, and two _Jagatais_. They pulled up just in time to wash the trinary with enough weight turbulence to throw every single mech back several steps.

Then the large glow of the dropship retro-rockets lit the sky, lighting the clouds like a giant fireball slowly descending to cook them all.

They began firing at the thing when the _Overlord-C's_ defenses kicked in, forcing only a couple of 'mechs to find cover. The aerospace fighters made another pass, but the trinary found enough cover to keep them relatively safe from strafing runs, though rendered them ineffective against the incoming dropship.

The _Overlord-C_ extended its landing gear and seemed to be swallowed up by the smoke resulting from the landing thrusters, and then the steam from the rain hitting the now super-heated ground. All was quiet for a few seconds after the landing rockets silenced themselves, the trinary waiting to show themselves after they confirmed they were not targets of a third aerospace run.

Mechwarrior Truss thought he saw something move in the smoke, maybe a 'mech, but he wasn't sure. His sensors picked up a whole mess of metal and heat from the landing, so he could not immediately rely on them.

Then a gauss rifle slug hit his 'mech in the chest as the wall of smoke ahead of him erupted into weapons fire. An entire trinary of clan omnimechs was advancing on them and throwing enough firepower at them to put down another dropship if need be. His star captain ordered their maneuvering through several paths through the debris to flank the arriving forces, which he did with a panicked adrenaline rush as sparks flew from autocannon fire hitting the buildings next to him. He knew these men never really saw real combat before, nothing more than the training simulators and military skirmishes they do to keep them sharp. This was the real thing, and they could not even see their enemy, but damn could they hear them.

* * *

Brevan gave the order and the twenty elementals hitching a ride on his forward units dismounted and raided the command center and traffic control tower through the front doors under his troops' cover fire. The smoke from the Iron Raptor was finally dissipating, and he knew he needed to be in a good position when it cleared, or else he chanced being outmaneuvered.

Just when he saw the markings on his surroundings and realized that they were fuel containers, he punched the jump jets on his _Night Gyr_ and descended back far enough to avoid what he feared happening most. "Get out of here! They are fuel tanks--!" But it happened anyway.

A PPC hit the connector assembly for one of the fuel tanks and three of them exploded in sequence, knocking three of his units down and sending serious shrapnel into two more. The explosion was deafening and it knocked another of his troops unconscious. One third of his trinary was now recovering from a single shot, and he figured out where it came from. He had to use speed this time to gain the advantage as they had the terrain working for them. _I will just have to take care of that little problem then…_

He ordered three of his jump capable 'mechs over the hill to keep those ambushers busy while he shifted back to the other side of the dropship to reinforce the two 'mechs that ran intro trouble defending the open bay, one of them subject to the fuel tank shrapnel and therefore under strength as it was.

He found eight enemy 'mechs there, outnumbering him and his two companions by more than two to one. He keyed his comm, "Hey, Charlie, when you finally get up, we need help at the starboard side of the Raptor!"

Immediately he saw the friendly blips on his sensors close distance with him, which was a relief. One of them chimed in, _"Sir! I spot a runner heading out of the area to your left! He is behind some rubble but telemetry still has him. If he gets out—"_

"I get it. He is mine." He maneuvered his way to an opening to light his jump jets off while firing his medium pulse lasers at an enemy _Nova _and _Shadow Cat_ to keep them from firing at his reinforcements. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a _Hunchback IIC_ lining himself up at one of the dropship landing gear support legs, aiming up at the knee joint with his two massive Autocannons. A shot from two of those at this range could take the joint out and result in the dropship possibly toppling over, crushing his unit and scrapping its ride home.

He immediately got on the comm, "Any units! We have a _Hunchback IIC_--!"

Before he could finish, Mechwarrior Carlis lowered the shoulder of her _Mad Dog_ and rammed the _Hunchback_ forward, knocking its shots wide and following it up with launching all of her Streak SRMs at its center torso at point blank range. The sight was extraordinary as the machine was blown off its feet onto its back into a steaming pile of 'mech, squirming around for a sense of equilibrium.

"Carlis! What was that?" His disdain for physical attacks shown through his every word.

"_Well, sir,"_ she already engaged another 'mech, a _Stormcrow_ who shot at her before the _Hunchback IIC_ even hit the ground. _"This IS a grand melee, and that WAS our dropship…"_

He hit his jump jets to intercept the runner trying to sneak out of combat and warn his superiors. Brevan's elementals already chimed in reporting that they have control of the communication's array, an advantage that only clan armored troops can exploit so damn quickly. Carlis's train of thought was well in line with what Thao Prentice would have done, though Brevan was slightly more traditional. Even so, her actions may have saved the day. He sighed, "Alright, good call. Just keep it clean if you can."

By now the rest of his units knocked down by the fuel tanks joined the battle behind him as he landed on a concrete strip and ran to line himself up with the lane ahead of the running 'mech and give his jump jets a moment to recharge.

The concrete was slick, and one slip could send him over and ruin his chances of getting his man. He almost saw the head of the _Cauldron-Born's_ squat profile as it ran between two rows of loading trailers. Timing his running just right, and jumping just before he hit a dip in the pavement that was retaining water, he activated his jump jets (which in a full run is no easy task balance-wise) and performed a 180 turn in mid air to land directly in the running path of his target. Wasting no time, he fired his AC20 at the 'mech's right leg, which blew out so hard that the machine's running force threw the torso into the ground at the speed of nearly 70 kph. The impact was ground shaking and the thing slid over 10 meters afterward, grinding its nose into the hard ground and sending sparks everywhere.

Brevan walked up and planted a foot on the 'mech's back to prevent it from getting up, which it stopped attempting when it found out it couldn't. It surrendered.

After checking in with his men, he found that his speed tactic worked and the spaceport was now, at least temporarily under his control.

He checked in with the dropship captain and found out that none of the Nighthawks were responding to their transmissions. Bree's locator lit up however, and it was moving rather quickly through what sensors showed to be rough and uneven terrain. So she was either in an aircraft or underground. Either way, the maps gathered from the spaceport showed the only building ahead of her movement being a launch pad, so he made the call to meet up with her there.

The external defenses of the spaceport were now activated to defend against anything without the Nighthawk transponder, so after his field techs were done patching up his rigs, they were to move out at top speed to meet up with their friends.

Though they had no clue what was going on planet side, Kael Pershaw's message was loud and clear when received earlier today: "Secure all launch points on the planet and make sure nothing launches and gets past the Goliath Scorpions." So the dropship captain did what he thought would be better than possibly trying to shoot down multiple high speed space craft while avoiding getting shot by the Goliath Scorpion warship and numerous planetary aerospace defenders: land and link up with the ground troops and stop the spaceports from functioning.

Easy in theory, difficult in execution: such was the MO of all the 32nd's operations.

* * *

The Protomechs finally dislodged the last of the debris in front of the railway station doors and opened them. Bree and Shaine had their troops make up several Molotov cocktails out of the cafeteria and cleaning supplies and had them ready to go. The entry way was still too small for the protos to get through, but they did their job. No less than thirty infantry flooded through the doorway and into the compound, guns blazing.

The return fire from the older imprisoned warriors was effective enough to scatter the incoming men and have them break for cover. A lengthy firefight ensued as the Nighthawks and their new warrior allies returned fire from their own cover across the compound in front of the train.

Davin shouted at Bree, "Ma'am, you need to get on that train to the launch site! We don't have much time here!"

Bree struggled to hear him over the gunfire, but understood his disposition completely. She looked at Shaine and had his unit light up their cocktails. They threw them at the same time over the barriers protecting the oncoming troops, lighting at least five of them on fire and sending them from cover in attempts to put themselves out. Bree used the confusion to back her men into the train and have them make their way to the front controls. She stayed behind however to make sure Davin and Shaine get through safely. Shaine's men threw the rest of their cocktails over the barriers again, and this time it really slowed the amount of ammo being sent their way for a short time.

"Shaine! Get your unit on board and start it up. Keep up cover fire until you are clear!"

"Aff!" Shaine, for all his size, was quick as hell, and he tapped Berks on the shoulder and ran to the next cover point, where Berks tapped Samme's shoulder and then ran to Shaine's cover point, who ran to the next one and so on. The unit's ability to synchronize without speaking was astounding, but most clan infantry units are like that she guessed.

Two augments made a break for Davin's position, with which he used up an entire magazine repelling them, killing one and seriously perforating the other one. But his weapon was shot in the process by their cover fire, which rendered it useless. This combat was getting more intense by the moment.

Bree made her way to him and tapped him on the shoulder while he unholstered his pistol. "Go now, I will cover you!"

"Neg! I have to get the rest of these men to the right side and have them block those guys over there!" He pointed to a small group of augments that were crouching their way to their right, which would give them a perfect firing lane to attack the train. "You need to get on board and get moving!"

With that, she nodded and broke for the train. Davin grabbed several men and ordered them to jump the barrier and go offensive. It was near suicide for them, but it would allow him the distraction needed to get to the flanking team and get the train off. Gamma 91 agreed to it and they went head first into the maelstrom of bullets.

Surprisingly, Gamma 91's men have fought valiantly throughout this whole engagement. For being imprisoned for so long, they have really proven themselves warriors with their sheer ferocity and determination. When they ran out of ammo, they attacked with their rifles like clubs, and one even kamikazied himself into a group of augments by running into them and pulling the pin from the grenade he had on his person.

The launch messed up the coordination of the flanking team, who did what Davin did not expect. They abandoned their side route and jumped the intervening barriers straight for the train, catching his small group unaware and gunning them down in seconds.

Bree looked back as she was closing in on the train to see Davin surrounded by augments. They stopped and watched him as the lead soldier hit the weapon out of Davin's hand and assaulted him with his bare hands. He stomped Davin several times, more than likely breaking multiple bones as the men formed a circle around him and cheered their leader on.

Right when she hit the train she heard a bone crunching sound and saw blood fly out of the circle leading the way for a dead augment to fall out through the wall of soldiers and reveal a battered Davin in a fighting pose. His chest was heaving and his face was all bloodied up, but he was still standing nonetheless and all the men present were awestruck.

Then she saw him pull a katana out of a sheath he had hidden in his jacket. The look on his face was serious as he cleared his mind and concentrated only on what he knew would be the final moments of his life. She had never seen a sword used in combat, especially against these augmented super-soldiers, and their lack of concern confirmed that they haven't either. The men jumped on him all at once, fouling her view of him and showing a scene of six augments pounding away at a single buried figure in a macabre of blood and yelling. More men from their unit rushed up to see what was happening, and the commotion completely threw the attention away from her and her train as it lurched forward. Samme put the barrel of his rifle out the door to return fire if necessary, "Whoa! Did that just happen?" A slight look of concern on his face showed her that his feelings have slightly changed for the freebirth Davin, who even surprised her with his actions.

As the train headed for the tunnel out of the complex, she began to reply and stopped when she heard a low grumble from within the pile of angry men. The grumble turned into a growl, and grew into a full-fledged falcon war cry as two of the men were decapitated in one slice of a bloody katana. The war cry grew even louder as an enraged and completely livid Davin hacked away at the rest of the now awestruck augments, who were being sliced down with a ruthless efficiency and bloodlust. The screaming and confusion displayed was amazing as some men attempted to run while others simply screamed blood curdling cries as they grabbed their bloody stumps and fell down like bricks.

His movements were slightly obscured through the bodies and flying dismembered limbs of the mob around him, but she could tell they were smooth and true. Each swing had the fury and energy of a hurricane, and the now frightened men were dropping rapidly as they attempted to defend themselves with their weapons and limbs, all being cleaved in half by the power of his blade.

She estimated eight men dead before the gunshots reigned in. The remaining augments all fired from a distance at their own falling comrades to put the enraged Falcon down, and they finally did it after near six seconds of constant fire. He went down face first charging the gunmen, and died the best death she ever saw.

The scene brought images of the story of Turkina and their founder, Elizabeth Hazen's legendary charge through the forest after DeChavilier's death, forging the origin and embodying spirit of her clan. It was something that would ring in the minds of all the men present for the rest of their lives.

The sound of gunfire just stopped before the train fully submerged itself in the tunnel, cutting their view of the spectacle off. Bree turned to find most of her and Shaine's unit standing there behind her, watching the scene that just faded from view. Silence overwhelmed them, no doubt spurring a whole mix of emotions.

One thing was for certain though; every one of them felt the loss and would never again think the same of freeborn. A few of them even envied his death, hoping that they can go down in such a blaze of glory.

They had another eighteen minutes until they reached the primary launch site, and they had to be ready to fight when they got there. After the sacrifice they just witnessed, they could do no less.

* * *

Guard detail for Palen's command center was a cakewalk assignment. You walk through the halls a bit, radio the front desk a few times, and you get to catch snacks in the break room when no one's looking. Good stuff. At least, that's what Randall thought before his patrol duty was increased almost 200 tonight. While his other friends got relief several hours ago, he still had to stick it out. On the bright side, at least he was out of the rain.

His partner and him walked through the third hallway on their route before noticing an open door. They were bored enough to check it out, and they forgot to tell the front desk their deviation over such a minor detail.

* * *

After Julian knocked both guards out, he hid them in a dry freezer and made his way with his tech's uniform to Palen's command center. It was an easy ride with no guards on patrol now to drill him with questions. He even used one of their security bypass cards to gain access to the control room, which was larger than he expected it to be from the inside.

The security stunt he pulled took a total of twenty minutes to complete, taking him out of the loop for a significant amount of time, more than he would have liked. When he entered the security center, he found Palen on a mass communication with all of the tech centers in Silver City. On another monitor he saw a detention room locked with four men in there, prisoners. One of them was Marcus.

"All four of these men are charged with treason. They allowed not only a team to infiltrate our city, but also managed to counterfeit orders to subvert our mission completely. Our entire purpose for being is on the line here, and we cannot tolerate this from _within_."

The prisoners inside the room stared at the camera; their hands were cuffed behind their backs. Julian could tell that they were tied into the communication, so they knew what was going on here.

Palen addressed the men, "Gains, Murdock, and Venice, you are charged with the alteration of orders and obstruction with an official military operation, impersonating an officer, and misuse of government resources. Who are your accomplices?"

The men did not reply, but only responded with defiant faces. The one in the middle of the three, Murdock he guessed, spoke up, _"We cannot stand for mass genocide again. The phenotype you put into those ships isn't—"_

The audio was cut off, probably to keep that information from getting to the general public's ears. Palen went on without missing a beat. "Tech Marcus, you are charged with treason, aiding and abetting the enemy, and blatantly disobeying security protocol. You let a team of covert agents land on this planet by setting up a fire in your unit and abandoning your station to allow them safe arrival. Who are your accomplices? I remind you that your punishment will be more desirable if you cooperate."

Marcus just looked at the camera with a confused and scared look on his face. He was terrified at his abduction and the allegations against him. Julian knew the truth, but if he was guilty, this was the best performance he ever witnessed. Marcus responded, _"I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't even set up that part of the box."_

Palen was quick to respond, "Yes, your report stated that a tech Tyler worked on that. Records show that there is no 'Tyler' residing on this planet. Your story is flawed."

Marcus pleaded, _"But sir! I had nothing to do with—"_ Again the audio was cut off.

Palen just paced a little bit, determined to provide an example to his population. "I cannot tolerate traitors from within. At this moment, I will purge these known rebels from our ranks, and send this event out as a warning to the rest of you that may harbor feelings of resentment or false righteousness. We exist here to produce the apex of human evolution. Apparently, these men fail to see the value of our accomplishment. It is only fitting then that one of our developed warriors administers the punishment, to prove the validity of our cause."

At that moment, the door to the detainment room opened and allowed an augmented warrior to enter. He looked emotionless and stern. He wasted no time closing the distance between himself and the prisoners, two of whom were awaiting their death defiantly and the other two who pleaded for their lives. The augment literally pummeled the first two quiet ones to death with his bare fists, each stroke blasting through bone and flesh seamlessly, displaying the power of this person's physical prowess. The other men, including Marcus ran around to avoid being killed. Marcus's terror amplified when the augment jumped into the path of the other man with uncanny speed, grabbed the man by the throat, and ripped his head off in one powerful jolt.

Marcus fell over his own feet and landed facing the camera, giving all of Silver City a view of his horror stricken face. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he screamed at the pain of the augment dragging him from the camera by his feet and beating him to death, throwing his body against the wall with such force that Marcus's screams silenced to the sound of his chest crushing against the hard surface. A wet smashing sound echoed through the minds of everyone watching, as all realized that these men were exactly what Palen said they were, for better or worse.

Julian watched this in horror as he fought all emotion to keep the expression on his face as blank as possible. He just got this innocent man killed, in a most horrific way, and he could not even respond. All emotion needed to be suppressed to keep his cover, though the bitter feeling of betrayal and tyranny coursed through his blood. This was why he was the way he was, because those who cross him have a tendency to die for things they know nothing about.

Julian just closed his eyes and looked away, having seen enough of his work end up on the walls of the room. The message was loud and clear in his ears: Palen needs to be stopped at all costs.

* * *

Star Commander Bree finally heard the prompt of the train system that told her that they were entering the launch site's loading bay. Shaine had his men ready at the door, weapons up to clear the bay and make way for her troops to enter and stop the launch. When the train stopped, they all flooded out of the train car in formation and encountered an empty bay. Slightly confused, they approached the door do the complex and found it locked. She had one of her men decipher the code sequence and it finally cracked open, just to have a missile hit it from the other side and kill the code-breaker.

The door blew in with enough force to scatter her men on the floor all over the place. She heard several aerospace fighters fly overhead and saw that the door opened up to a courtyard that had several omnimechs in it pointing their weapons at the gaping opening she was standing in front of moments before.

The loudspeaker opened up on the lead 'mech, a _Timber Wolf_ and ordered her surrender. It claimed to have a binary around the complex along with the star in the courtyard, so there was no escaping. She just cursed herself in her head at failing to find a quick solution to the problem.

Shaine looked at her with inquiry on his face, asking her what to do without saying it aloud. She thought hard and just looked back at him with a concerned expression.

The lead 'mech opened its comm again, ordering them to come out in the next 20 seconds or be killed. The time started ticking down as his four star mates moved into a V formation around the opened hole of the doorway.

She ordered her men back to the train when she heard the tunnel ahead of it collapse in on itself. The aerospace fighters must've thought of that too.

The _Timber Wolf_ opened fire on the wall at the end of the twenty seconds with his medium lasers, creating a large enough opening to freely aim his weapons at any point in the bay. Right when he pointed his torso at the crate she was using for cover, she swore she saw her life flash before her eyes. She gathered the courage to come out from behind the crate and face the 75-ton omnimech face to face. It was a meaningless death, but at least she would go down defiantly.

The weapons fire she heard was supposed to be the last thing to hit her ears, but it wasn't. Unblinking in her stance, she saw two LRM volleys hit the _Timber Wolf_ square in the left side, knocking it several steps to its right and sending its shots astray. Immediately Brevan's _Night Gyr_ landed behind the _Timber Wolf_ and opened up with its pulse lasers to hammer the heavy 'mech more, diverting it away from its unarmed targets inside the loading bay. A _Summoner_ landed next to Brevan sporting the same black paint scheme Thao loved so much, telling her that the Nighthawks were now on-planet and running amok. This was so far from the original plan that it would almost have made her laugh, but her relief overwhelmed that notion entirely.

Fighting erupted inside the courtyard as she spotted a Falcon _Visigoth_ shooting down one of the bombers that turned her tunnel into rubble. She hit her communicator, "Brevan! What in Kerensky's name are you doing here!"

"_Saving your ass! What does it look like?"_ His demeanor showed him enjoying battle a little too much.

"I have to get inside the complex and stop the launch sequence. Give me some cover! Route the enemy to one side or something."

"Copy that, I am on it."

Brevan ordered his unit to suppress the enemy away from the entrances, which they did with grueling efficiency. And with that, Bree made her daring run.

All of the men under her and Shaine ran through a courtyard with no less than ten battlemechs duking it out on foot. They ran as hard as they ever have, never letting the doors across the way out of their sight. Several laser beams tore up the ground around the walkway, and an autocannon shell took out the walkway behind them with a deafening crunch. She dared not look up at the sight of these behemoths shooting at each other. The sight alone would cause her to lose her balance.

Shaine took the lead and shoulder rammed through the door without loosing stride, allowing the rest of his unit to fan out and engage the techs at will. They pushed through the main corridor in formation, shooting out three guards instantly as they appeared near the opposite end to defend the launch center. Samme shot out the locks on the inner door and they flooded into the center and instantly caught the attention of everyone present. The indigenous staff all put their hands up in surrender at the sight of the Falcons intruding with rifles and allowed her second computer man access to the launch controls.

Shaine took two of his men and lead them through the complex, clearing every room with lethal proficiency. His command was unquestioned; he lived for this.

The sounds of warfare were ever so present outside, as the occasional explosion or crash would shake up the techs every time. This was the moment the entire mission was based on.

* * *

Brevan lost one man in the courtyard when the defending 'mechs concentrated fire and took out the engine shielding of his starmate's _Black Lanner_. Luckily, he was able to keep one of his opponents between him and the other the whole time, reducing the amount of firepower coming at him and making him smile when the shots of the rear guy actually hit his friend in the back. These men had nice machines, but displayed no battle experience. A star outside the courtyard did seem to be giving his other two stars trouble however…

Jumping out of the courtyard and into the battle outside, he attempted to contact the opposing Star Commander. "Defending commander, this is Star Commander Brevan, you have the opportunity to surrender now and suffer no more casualties."

"Star Commander Brevan, I have to deny your offer. We can, however, relocate to an area to minimize the damage to this facility."

Brevan thought about it, and informed Bree of his leaving them for a short while. She just told him to get it over with and be back soon.

With that, Brevan followed the enemy to an open field half a click away from the complex, just far enough to miss the sensor readout of two security forces vehicles approaching the complex from the other side.

Shaine and his men finished with their building sweep, feeling the effects of running so much with their equipment on. The sounds of a forced entry through the front lobby however, prompted his men to respond and make way to intercept. After sprinting through two hallways, he found ten heavily armed men making their way down the lead darkened hallway with flashlights on their weapons forming search teams. He engaged without a second thought, scattering the men and beginning a long and drawn out firefight.

* * *

Lathan and Thao Prentice were dead even in combat skills, making this engagement very difficult. They exchanged blows and found weak spots in both of their bodies. Thao had one of his arms broken and suffered a hit that snapped several of his ribs, making it difficult to breath. Lathan found himself the victim of a nasty cut to his leg, slowing him down a peg.

This fight was quickly degraded into a two-man brawl spanning the entire width of the command room. Lathan threw a chair at Thao, which connected and knocked him over, giving him the opportunity to pick up a four foot support bar knocked loose by Thao's tank earlier. Thao found a fire ax found in a glass compartment on one of the walls. It was blow for blow at this point.

The fight itself carried out of the main room and to the exit, where Thao opened the external door to reveal a bridge to the next building being assaulted by heavy rain. He backed onto the bridge and watched Lathan follow, giving them the first amount of privacy yet as the observers crowded the doorway but did not follow them out.

"I know who you work for," Lathan told Thao as he swung his bar at Thao's head. Thao ducked and attempted a sweep of Lathan's legs, barely missing and getting his footing back.

"Okay, who do I work for?"

"Kael Pershaw." That got Thao's attention. The momentary pause gave Lathan the opportunity to connect his bar with Thao's head, knocking the ax loose and forcing him backwards onto his back.

Lathan fell on Thao, using the bar to choke him with his body weight. "You do not understand. This is the way of all great conquerors. Sacrifices in honor must be made to crush the weak!"

"What… stupid rhetoric are you spouting… now?" Thao used his knee to kick Lathan in the groin, causing him to release his pressure on the bar, giving Thao the opportunity to head-butt the guy and send him reeling.

"I know why you are here, and it is a shame that we have to meet this way."

"How do you know who I am?" Thao struggled to see Lathan through the heavy rain between them.

"I never forget my work. I just never imagined that it would come back to haunt me like this. The Jade Falcon being the wrench to clog our machine." With that Lathan surged forward using his bar as a jabbing tool, getting Thao in the stomach.

Thao just responded with a quick exhale signifying him loosing wind, "Your work? Who _are_ you? What makes you think you know anything about me?" Thao, stepping back to absorb the second jab and catching the bar to pull Lathan in close heard an answer that he never expected to hear in a million years.

"Because _I _am Jade Falcon!" Lathan took advantage of Thao's surprise and punched him in the throat, sending him to his knees, coughing and gagging. "I am former Galaxy Commander Lathan Crichell, aide to the late Vandervahn Chistu. I was the commander in charge of the artillery unit that killed Ulric Kerensky, and the first commander of the Nighthawks. Your unit was our masterpiece."

Thao, struggling to focus his vision looked up to see Lathan towering over him.

"But his time passed, and I flew here to finish what we started, what the Crusaders started. We finally made our perfect warrior! Why do you want to destroy that?"

A flash of lightning provided all the light Thao needed to pinpoint his target. He balanced himself on his arms and threw his legs around to crash into the side of Lathan's knees, breaking them and sending his head into the hand railing. Gathering all that was left of his strength, Thao drew his face close to Lathan's and said his peace.

"Because we are no better than our enemies if we build our victory on the blood of our children. You sicken me Lathan, and the world is a better place without you."

Lathan, woozy from the hit, tried to speak up, "You are not a true… clansman…" The weak attempt at pulling himself up onto the rail failed when his hand slipped on the slick surface. His feet slipped under the railing due to the rainwater splashing over the side and he barely caught himself on the ledge after sliding the rest of the way off the bridge.

Thao stood strong despite the rain, his disgust for the man in front of him powering his every limb. "And you are not human." Thao mustered all of his anger and crushed the fingers of the dangling commander with such a force that his own body weight was now holding the man far above the ground below. He took special care to look into Lathan's eyes as he lifted his foot and watched him fall to his death.

A moment of silence signified his passing, as he did not scream on his way down. The men in the opening just watched with their jaws open. The rain drowned everything out.

Thao's two men were released by the guards and allowed to pick him up off of the bridge floor. They brought him into the complex and took command of the center, ordering all defensive units to stand down.

* * *

Palen's command center was watching the firefight in the halls of the primary launch facility and listening to the battle reports of the binary of 'mechs north of the facility. He was silently observing everything when the radio chatter on all channels lit up. _"Stand down. All military units stand down. This is direct order from central command."_

The star commander from the 'mech unit near the launch facility spoke up. _"Who is this? Commander Lathan? Identify yourself."_

Automatically, the alarmed Palen Miescher hit the comm and tried to contact Lathan himself. "Lathan."

He waited. "Lathan, come in. Who is that? What's going on?"

Julian was almost right behind Palen now, his hand gripping the assassin's knife in his pocket. His uniform made him blend perfectly in with the other people.

The radio transmission came back, _"Lathan has expired. I am in command now."_

_Now_ Julian recognized that voice. How Thao managed to neutralize Lathan was beyond him, but he knew that this would not go over well with Palen. The incursion team in the launch facility reported to Palen that they had their warhead armed and the timer set for twenty seconds. They were going to blow the facility up and stop the team from disabling the launch signal from reaching the other sites, sacrificing a single ship instead of the whole fleet. They were retreating now, having lost over 50 of their men to the close quarters combat.

Julian now had the option to either get Palen to stop the launch, and have his team, his family killed; or have him order the bomb disarmed, and risk Bree failing in their stopping the launch, near guaranteeing the contamination of his clan's gene pools. The clock was ticking and he had no time to decide. The accelerated launch schedule was going to happen in thirty seconds. Do or die.

* * *

Palen stood back and mentally prepared himself to watch his primary launch station go up when he suddenly felt cold steel on his throat. Julian had his knife to the man's Adam's apple and his head pulled back to receive the killing stroke. "Stop the bomb."

Palen started sweating, knowing that nothing the men around him could do would stop this man from killing him if he did not obey. "Stop the bomb _now!_"

Palen made his decision. If he stopped the bomb, then the infiltrators may still miss the secondary launch signal sent from the auxiliary team he had at station seven. He would still have his victory. Ironically enough, the treachery by his own men prompted his paranoia and the implied need for a secondary launch server, just in case they tried one more time to subvert the launch.

Without moving his head, he spoke into his mic to the security team responsible for the warhead. "Disarm the warhead. Shut it down remotely."

"_Sir? The launch—"_

"I am the superior here and I say _shut it down!_"

"Copy that sir. Remote disarming. We cannot reactivate the warhead now."

Julian breathed an internal sigh of relief as he realized now that the entire room was silently staring at him holding their commander hostage at knifepoint. Palen moved his eyes to his right in a failed attempt to look behind him. "There, you saved your men. But the launch still goes as planned."

"We'll see about that," Julian replied, totally confident in Bree's ability to abort the launch. _Come on… don't fail me now…

* * *

_

Bree's man needed her help in the final bypasses, which she lent a hand identifying the wires he called out and cutting them in conjunction with him working on the computer. The updated launch timer was counting down, and they had only ten seconds left. Luckily, there were only two wires left, and she already had them in her hand.

"Blue two!" her man shouted. She immediately found it and cut it.

"Now splice red four and blue one! That is it!"

She cut the two wires, carefully stripped the top ends as to not cut the conductor in the process, and looked up at the timer. It read :02 seconds. She whipped her head around and mashed the two wires together, twisting them to keep the connection and receiving a shock as the main computer routed the launch signal to a dead server instead of the primary one.

She quickly seized and released her hands, shaking them out to signify the pain she was in when her troop exclaimed their success. "We got it! HAH! Launch aborted! Launch aborted!"

She smiled quickly at that notion and stood up to pat him on the shoulder. He was stressed to the max during the sequence, and she was glad to see him finally release. Then suddenly—

* * *

"We have launch! Crafts fifteen through twenty have received secondary signal and have initiated their thrusters!" The launch tech in the command center exclaimed the report for everyone to hear. Palen smiled through the corner of his mouth as his body relaxed.

Julian, angry as he could get, hit Palen in the head with the hilt of his knife and knocked him out cold. The body dropped and the room looked at Julian, not a sound was made.

"Who is the senior officer in here?" he asked the silent techs.

A man stood up, cautiously speaking, "I am."

"Good, I want you to shut this station down, immediately."

The lead tech just stared at him.

"NOW!"

The lead tech, now afraid of this stranger that snuck in there and nearly slit the throat of their commander, turned to his consol and identified himself, explaining the fall of Palen and the orders of the stranger. The commander outside the primary launch facility reluctantly obeyed stating that since their commanders have been compromised, they had better retreat to assess the situation.

When the lead tech looked back to confirm to Julian his actions, he was gone. Just like that.

* * *

Bree was devastated. _All that work, the whole operation, failed. Six ships launched, and they were at the end of the string. How did this happen? We did everything right._

With the mass confusion overwhelming her team, she ordered their withdrawal from the site. Shaine met up with her and they hotwired some ground vehicles from the motor pool and exited just in time to catch Brevan and his troops arrive from their incomplete battle.

With no way to transport their downed 'mechs to the dropship, they extracted all pertinent cockpit electronic information and destroyed the machines as they left.

* * *

Leerais Ben-Shimon fared better in the space battle then he originally thought he could. The second _Carrier_ was shot out of commission when one of its thrusters was severely damaged by one of his aerospace fighters and his capital weapons zeroed in on it. It was a lucky shot, but it worked nonetheless.

His fighters fared decently well against their odds, but were down to only three units, all out of ammo for their non-energy weapons. The strategy now was to take care of the remaining aerospace fighters and then concentrate the full brunt of his destroyer's firepower on the last _Carrier_.

His fighters played bait as they led a sloppy formation across the bottom side of the _Lola III_ heading for the broadside with all the weapons. The militia units, delighted at their victory thus far over the opposing fighters but enraged at the destruction of two of their three _Carrier_ vessels, pursued vigorously when they heard about the launch of the final two craft from the remaining _Carrier_.

Leerais's sensor tech shouted the most disturbing news a warship captain can get when his guns are pointed at another target. "We have boarding craft exiting the last _Carrier_ and heading for our refit ports!"

Forcing himself to concentrate on taking the fighters out first, he made the decision to carry his plan to the end and then take care of the boarding craft. He went with his gut instinct on this one, and may regret it later on, but he was good and tired of swatting at these gnats that have combined their firepower with the _Carriers_ to render near 40 of his warship useless.

The plan worked because the fighters expected the Goliath Scorpion destroyer to respond to the boarding craft and abandon its port side rotation. Their mistake cost them their lives. The Auriga fired all of its point defense machine guns and small caliber auto cannons and formed a wall of ammunition that consumed the remainder of the enemy fighter craft, at the expense of evading the boarding craft on its opposite side.

The first of the craft shot its magnetic rappelling cords and managed to attach them to the hull. As it reeled itself in, the second moved in position near it, attempting to do the same. As this happened, six new blips appeared leaving the atmosphere of the planet. They appeared to be escape craft or shuttles of some kind. Either way, it dawned on the Scorpion commander that the boarding craft were a diversion from the escaping craft in the distance. So he decided to do something that instantly shook every person on his bridge.

"Navigator!"

"Aye, sir!"

"Shift a full 30 degrees to the right, and full thruster forward toward that _Carrier_."

The first rule of naval warfare, the one that even the lowest of maintenance men learned was going to be broken. You don't play chicken with a warship.

"Sir… are you sure--?"

"Do as I say! Now!"

"Aye, sir!"

The ship pitched to the right drastically, using its upper protruding decks to actually side ram the boarding craft, crushing them and causing a small hull breach on his starboard side. The area, luckily just the access deck for the aiming computer rooms, was sealed off without incident to prevent depressurization. A lucky strike for Leerais, and he knew it.

The _Carrier_, now alert that it was on a collision course with a much larger _Lola III_, reluctantly averted its course to gain some distance, as they were closing within ten kilometers at a very unacceptable speed for a commander who likes his ship's paint job. The course correction exposed its side stabilizing thrusters, which Leerais ordered destroyed with his nose's lasers. Several direct hits took the _Carrier's_ ability to stabilize itself accurately enough to keep the _Lola III_ within its firing arc, and Leerais had his ship kept in its opponent's blind spot long enough to launch the rest of his White Shark missiles at the rear thrusters, providing an explosion powerful enough to shake both ships, send his aerospace fighters into a cold sweat, and render the _Carrier_ useless enough to surrender. It was a floating rock now as far as it was concerned. Leerais' little scare tactic, okay, huge scare tactic actually worked.

His NL55s effectively hit two of the escaping ships before they were out of range, to which he ordered his remaining three fighters to shoot the rest down. They expended the rest of their fuel getting into range, but succeeded, destroying three of them and knocking the other one's thrusters out of commission and into a flat spin.

Leerais had the Auriga catch up to his stranded fighters and brought them in, then had a small retrieval craft fetch the last escape shuttle.

He had a lot of mess to filter through, and hopefully the crew of the _Carrier_ and the shuttle will fill him in why he just fought a grueling space engagement.

* * *

Within that time, Thao Prentice informed the planetary militia of the change of command resulting from the death of their commander. He ordered all units to stand down and allow safe passage for travelers. He kept tabs on the status of the _Carriers_ and launch craft from Lathan's command station. After he was confident the Goliath Scorpions had retrieved the last genetics delivery vehicle and confirmed the origin of the second launch signal resulting in those six craft exiting the planet, he had his men loaded into a transport vehicle and headed off toward the Iron Raptor, who contacted him via the militia's main comm frequency.

* * *

Bree made it a point, now that the planetary militia is standing down, to stop at the main genetics repository and retrieve Davin's body from the loading station. Brevan's men followed her vehicles just in case things fired up again, but the troops on this planet were loyal, if not naïve.

She made her way back to the Iron Raptor as well and found Julian sleeping in his quarters. The dropship captain informed her that he showed up on a motorcycle and went to his room without saying a word. She could not think of anything to say, so she just went with it and had her men start securing the bays for launch.

By the time Thao arrived, the rain subsided and for the first time since they've been on this God-forsaken planet, they saw the sun. It was a blue star, shining a different kind of light on everything, but it was welcoming nonetheless. The land looked so different with natural light and absence of ominous clouds. They figured it was a phenomenon that they would not experience again here, so a few moments were taken outside the ship on the launch pad floor to enjoy it.

As one large group they stood and stared at its awe. Even the bay techs came out and joined in. For once, everyone there was an equal in the eyes of the sun.


	5. Epilogue

**Epilogue**

After a complete report and all the surviving troops were accounted for, the ship waited for its launch location to be on the opposite side of the planet from the Auriga so they could leave unnoticed. It was a precise matter, and the Goliath Scorpion's destroyer would pick it up eventually, but much too late to pursue, not with their captain dealing with the newly appointed planetary leader and all of its prisoners.

Thao entered the mess hall before the launch to find Bree eating her last meal before strapping herself in. He sat next to her.

"This one will go down in the record books, quiaff?"

"Aff. You can say that again." She was pretty depressed at having failed her mission to avoid the launch of the genetic delivery craft. After Thao informed her of the separate signal that not even some lead techs knew about, she felt marginally better. At least in the end, it all worked out.

"Have you spoken with Julian yet?"

"Neg. He has kept to himself since he got back. I think I saw him in the common area reading some book. Edgerllen Poe or something…"

Thao just dipped his head. Most of the time Julian does not speak with him about the stuff he sees on these missions, but one day he will open up. At least, that was his hope. "You did the katana in the briefing room?"

"Aff. You should have seen it. It was… amazing, what he did."

"I heard. Heh, you should be a little proud."

"I am. I never thought I would say it, but he really showed us up. A freebirth… you were right about him Thao." She took the katana from Davin's body and tried to clean it, though some red still stained the blade. It now sits below the Jade Falcon crest in the briefing room with a small plaque that reads:

**MECHWARRIOR DAVIN**

**BORN OF A MOTHER'S WOMB**

**DIED IN TURKINA'S GRACE**

**A CRUSADER TO THE END**

Thao stood up, ready to let her finish her… he couldn't recognize the food she was eating. "Bree, what is that you are eating?"

"Oh, it is some animal that Berks brought back with him. He left it in his car and picked it up on the way back, you believe that? You should try it, he is a really good cook."

Thao was nearly speechless. "That little, oh…" He almost got angry and started shaking his head at the thought of Berks disobeying his commander like that. But then… the anger subsided and he gave in. He sighed, "Sure, give me a piece of it."

* * *

The Iron Raptor launched on schedule and ended up rendezvousing with its jumpship several days later. The trip back to Ironhold was long and arduous, but it gave Thao a lot of time to think. To think about how far some people are willing to go for victory. What the Falcon used to represent and how it has changed. And how it was his duty to provide the proper example of honor for his men to follow. This was, after all, considered a very dangerous job, one that exposes them to the most corrupt ways of war.

But he didn't believe it. He believed that good people could make a difference. Like Julian, who suffers the most out of the team. In the end, even he lightened up and had fun with the rest of the unit. This was their home, and while none of them ever had a family, albeit, they all used to shudder at the thought of one, this was as close as it got. And after seeing what Davin did, they all had a new perspective on people in general.

* * *

The Grand Council used the evidence the Goliath Scorpions found in their ongoing investigation of the planet Atlantis. The notion of further testing of the augmented phenotype was voted down after hearing what was done to achieve it. Some argued that those people died in vain if their sacrifices were thrown aside. But others argued that using the research would degrade the values that Nicholas Kerensky tried to instill in them from their inception. Preservation of human life must always be a top priority, and honoring people who sacrifice innocents only gives a bad precedence and sends the wrong message to those would try this in the future.

The bickering in the Grand Council on the matter lasted quiet a while, but died down eventually. Even the inconclusive rumors of some secret invaders sabotaging the operation before the Scorpions had a chance to land and occupy the planet were ultimately dismissed.

And in the future, this would just go down in the history logs as another subdued rebellion, watered down to minimize the embarrassment of the clans' incompetence, as all history was but a sliver of the truth.


End file.
